


Eternal Sunshine

by waterwings



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cannon...adjacent, Enemies to Lovers, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU (ish), First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Memory Magic, Not Wayward Son Compliant, Slow Burn, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Gay for Simon Snow, mixtapes and boomboxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 59,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25080901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterwings/pseuds/waterwings
Summary: Sometimes, I catch glimpses. They make my brain squeeze and squirm—like my grey matter has been turned to needles. Internal wounds, all memories and blood.Crowley, it hurts every time.I know I had him—whoever he was—erased. I know what it means. At some point, I wanted him gone. Wanted him gone so badly that I was willing to let them wipe everything and leave the slate blank.There’s no record of an erasure not sticking. No reports of memories ever coming back. Believe me, I’ve checked.But maybe…maybe some people aren’t meant to be forgotten.I’ll probably never know._______________________An AU where you can have the memories of people you once loved erased.Where Simon and Baz fall in love.Where they fall apart.And where Simon runs into Baz years later, and Baz doesn’t recognize him.Inspired by the brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (but stands on its own, so don't worry if you haven't seen it).
Relationships: Dev/Niall (Simon Snow), Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 348
Kudos: 301





	1. Glimpses

**Author's Note:**

> Picks up the fall after Carry On, but Simon and Baz didn’t have a truce or get together at Watford.
> 
> Buckle in for this one friends. If you know the film, you know that the feels will be turbulent as an airplane in a tornado. 
> 
> You don’t need to have seen the movie to understand this story, but there are a few softer moments (and achey ones) that will make your heart squish in recognition if you’ve watched the film.
> 
> Thank you to the sweet-as-icing-sugar [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading and answering bizarre 1:00am questions <3

**AFTER**

**Baz (25 years old)**

Sometimes, I catch glimpses. They make my brain squeeze and squirm—like my grey matter has been turned to needles. Internal wounds, all memories and blood.

Crowley, it hurts every time.

I know I had him—whoever he was—erased. I know what it means—that at some point, I wanted him gone. Wanted him gone so badly that I was willing to let them wipe everything and leave the slate blank.

Except for the glimpses.

Today was long. All synthetic light and alarms and triage and trauma. As I leave through the automatic sliding doors of the hospital, I feel the wind pick up, tossing dust and hair into my face.

There’s never any warning. The triggers are random Maybe today it was the wind. Because that’s when I see him.

 _Sun kissing his cheeks, setting his copper hair on fire. A thousand freckles and moles standing bright against the afternoon. A rush of air batting him about, lifting his loose white tee, sliding between his curls._ The wind was wild and laughing that day. I wonder if we were too...

As quickly as it comes, it’s gone again. A glimpse of a boy I must’ve known. Must’ve cared for. Maybe loved?

There’s no record of an erasure not sticking. No reports of memories ever coming back. Believe me, I’ve checked.

But maybe…maybe some people aren’t meant to be forgotten.

I’ll probably never know.

**BEFORE**

**Simon (18 years old)**

I feel like my skin is on fire.

“Pen, I don’t…I can’t…”

Penny glances over at me from across the room. She has peanut butter smudged on her chin and her curly hair is corralled into a high ponytail that looks ready to break free.

“Simon,” she says. There’s a laugh buried behind her cheeks that’s about to burst. Honestly, I’m grateful she’s trying to hold it in. I can’t handle someone making fun of me. Not now.

“Si,” she tries again. “Why don’t you have any clothes on?”

Not my best moment. I’m practically starkers (still got my pants on. But otherwise, totally naked).

“I don’t know what to wear!”

Okay, now that it’s out of my mouth, it sounds dumb. I know it does. But it’s the first day of university classes. At Watford, I wore the same thing, right from the first day until I left for the summer. It was brilliant really, the uniforms. Made it so you didn’t have to think too much.

These days, all I can do is think.

It’s really fucking me up.

“Why doesn’t uni have a fucking uniform,” I growl, tearing at my hair.

“Maybe because personal expression and freedom of speech are essential ingredients for a diverse learning environment?”

I glare. “Clothes aren’t free speech.”

Penny pushes her bright red glasses up her nose. “Tell me what’s really bothering you, Simon.”

“I’m just…I’m nervous.”

_Nervous that people will see me. See me without my magic. See that there’s nothing left but bumble and bluster. Not the worst chosen one ever chosen. Just the worst._

As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I know it’s true. I scramble to keep the words flowing. “I just…I was such a fuck up at Watford, yeah?”

“No you weren’t—”

“And I get to start new here. No one thinks I’m some…some chosen one who’s gotta save the whole fucking magical world. Here…” I stumble a little. “Here I just get…I get…”

“To be normal,” Penny finishes.

“Yeah.”

Penny’s face softens. No laughter. No judgement. “Do you want me to help you pick something out?”

I don’t want to admit it. Don’t wanna say it out loud. But… “Yeah,” I say, staring at the floor.

“Okay,” Penny says, crossing our tiny flat, taking me by the elbow, and steering me back into my room. “But from now on, you can’t parade around in your pants. New roommate rule. On the record.”

I try to grumble at her, but am so relieved that someone is going to make a decision for me, it comes out more as a whimper. 

I’ve been dreading this day for months. Well no. Not just dread. It’s a weird combination of dread and excitement and… nausea? Yeah, there’s been a lot of that. Planning for college (for anything) after we defeated the Humdrum felt kinda pointless.

It’s almost like I was a player in a video game. And I’ve defeated the big bad. And now I’m just…I’m some pixelized character with no more missions left to complete. Walking in circles in a world that doesn’t need me anymore.

I’m a fucking NPC.

Penny keeps telling me that I need to find a "new normal." That I’d been flying through life doing a million miles an hour. “It’s time to slow down. Be a regular human. Go out. See a movie. Eat shitty take away.”

And we did that. We did it for months. I was doing okay for a while, with just me and Penny and our tiny little flat. But uni. Well. I feel like I have to shift again. And I’m fumbling.

“GREAT SNAKES SIMON WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR ROOM!”

I smile at that, and it takes me by surprise (I don’t smile much these days). I can’t go off anymore, but messes have always come naturally.

By the time I’m dressed (Jeans and a long sleeve) (“See, that’s not so hard!”) (Fuck me, I feel like I can’t breathe), we’re already running late.

Something about outside makes the claustrophobia, that constant feeling of fucking doom, ease up a bit. Under the September sky, with the smell of fall and the city in the air, the tension I didn’t know I was carrying on my shoulders just melts away.

I’m late for my first class. But that’s okay. Because there are a couple hundred people in the lecture hall and no one sees me come in. My magic doesn’t roll off of me in waves of stress and smoke.

For the first time since I can remember, no one’s paying attention to me.

And I like that just fine.

There are so many people, moving in and out of classrooms, up and down the super old stone steps, across the green of the quad. It’s a tiny city of people and some of them must be as nervous as me—Crowley, I can see it on their faces. Fear and panic mixing with something new.

…

It's 4pm and I’ve settled into my last lecture of the day (an intro English class. Something about literature since the 1900s). I’ve got myself a spot near the back of the room. The desks are so small that my knees feel cramped and the tiny surface barely fits my notebook. There’s a boy with warm chestnut hair (long-ish, like Baz used to wear his) sitting next to me and I think he might be smiling in my direction.

“Hey,” I whisper, trying to smile back. My voice cracks a bit and, fuck, it’s hard to talk to strangers. Maybe Penny’s right. Two friends are more than enough.

His eyes crinkle at the edges as he turns to face me. Our knees are practically bumping together. “I’m Keith.”

“Simon,” I say.

“What your major Sim—”

But I don’t hear the end of that sentence. Don’t hear anything.

Because that’s when I see him.

It’s like the world has slowed down. My ears are ringing—kind of like how they used to when I would go off. Maybe I’m going off now. Maybe my body still explodes when it’s under stress. There’s just no magic left. Only the feelings pulsing and building in my gut and the aftershocks ravaging my body.

Dark hair hanging loose around his face. Features carved in sharp lines. Smart black trousers and a soft pink shirt. Baz has always been annoyingly fit, but now...he looks like he belongs here. He looks how I wish I could look, just once in my fucking life. Like I knew what I was doing. Like I belonged. The way that his eyes move over the sea of desks makes me shiver—he hasn’t seen me yet. Maybe I can run, maybe he won’t see…

But even as the thoughts explode in my mind, it’s too late.

His grey eyes are storming as they lock onto mine.

I know that face. I know every fucking line. I know the way his jaw clenches slightly when he’s upset (he’s doing that now), I know the way his eyes flash when he’s surprised (they’re doing that now too), and I know that the smarmy bastard overcompensates when he’s upset.

That’s how I know that he wasn’t expecting this. That, for once, I’ve caught him off balance. 

Because Baz Pitch fucking winks at me.

As something flips in my stomach (something warm and confusing and I don’t have the energy to unpack this feeling right now), I know that I wasn’t expecting him either.

**Baz**

Needless to say, my father was not impressed when I told him I’d be going to a normal university. His pale complexion became translucent when I told him I planned to study to be a doctor.

“A magical doctor?” he asked, swallowing hard.

“No father. A normal doctor.”

Aleister fucking Crowley. I have no idea where I found the courage to tell him that.

“But you love magic,” Daphne had said. She was right. I did. I do.

But after Snow defeated the Humdrum and went off the map, well…it all seemed to matter less.

That courageous fuck gave all of his magic away. Every last bit of it. And for what? To save a world of mages who tossed him out on his arse as soon as he stopped being useful.

I love magic. It’s the fire that dances in my blood and the one thing (other than one properly gorgeous ex-chosen one) that makes me feel alive.

But the world of mages? That’s something I’m not sure I love anymore.

The lecture hall is filling quickly. I lift my eyes to scan the crowd, hoping for an empty seat near the back. Today has been too heavy for casual conversation. I want to find a chair where I can let the details of our course syllabus drift over me—learning as lullaby. 

And that’s when I see him.

A crown of messy curls piled above an undercut, that same jaw jutted out, those same shoulders managing fighting stance, even as he’s sitting down.

It’s been so long since I saw those plain blue eyes go wild and, for a split second, it knocks the wind out me. My mouth starts to form the signature sneer I save especially for Snow (my mouth has muscle memory stored, just for him) (pathetic).

But then I stop.

No.

We’re not at Watford anymore.

The world isn’t ending.

I’m done playing it safe.

I don’t think about it. I just do it.

I fucking wink at the love of my life.

**Simon**

I know that I should be paying attention. That’s the point of all this university shit, right? But it’s not my fault. Not when Baz Pitch is sitting two rows in front of me, looking like…well…

Distracting.

All of my attention is focused on the back of Baz’s neck, as his hair gently grazes the top of his shoulders. What’s the point of such perfect posture? The way his pen glides across the page, taking the words of the lecture and translating them into his pretty fucking script. I spent years watching him write. I can practically see the flawless loops and dips.

I’m gonna confront him. I need it. I need this. Something familiar. I want it so much, it opens something painful inside of me.

I think about it for the full fifty minutes, going over words in my head, imagining how I’ll corner him by the door or maybe crowd over his desk, force him to look up at me for once in his fucking life. But I don’t get the chance, because as soon as the class finishes, he’s up and moving for the door.

“Shit,” I mutter, scraping my stuff into my backpack and rushing out of my seat.

“See you next class Si—” Keith says, but I’m already gone.

My head is on a swivel, absorbing everything in the hallway. Bodies crush out, mingling and chattering out their first-day jitters. But everything that isn’t Baz fucking Pitch is white noise, a background track in my life. All I need right now—all I’ve ever needed—is to know where Baz is. To have him where I can see him.

I catch a flash of dark hair as he slips through the front doors.

He won’t get away from me this time. 

I hurry after him, sneaking through the gaps in the crowd, and push out through the heavy doors. A burst of air crashes into me as I stare across the courtyard and a sense of calm washes over me.

I see him.

**Baz**

Simon is a fucking vision.

_The wind batting him about, lifting his loose white tee, sliding between his curls. Sun kissing his cheeks, setting his copper hair on fire. A thousand freckles and moles standing bright against the afternoon._

“Baz!”

I should be hurrying away. I should be looking somewhere other than his fucking face. I should be doing nearly anything else. But instead, I just stand here, watching the boy who I’ve tried so hard to forget, to resist, to hate, to wank away, as he gets closer and closer.

I’ve been starved of this beautiful man for months and I’m obsessed with every inch of this, carving out each second like it’s my last day on this earth, cataloguing his face as he huffs and as his blue eyes catch the light. I hate that he can wear a white t-shirt (the way it tugs at his broad shoulders and I can see an inch of the skin by his waist) (I’m going to burn up) and it still makes me want to devour him, to taste him.

He’s huffing as he finally catches up to me (mouth breather). I’ve stopped in front of the fountain outside of the Arts building. Water is gurgling behind us, a soft chorus for our reunion.

“What are you doing here?”

Not exactly a romantic reunion.

Crowley, he’s thick. “I was attending a lecture, Snow,” I snap. “You do know what that is, don’t you? You didn’t stumble in by accident?”

He glares at me.

I didn’t notice it at first—I wasn’t close enough—but Snow looks different. Dark circles sweep like thumbprints under his eyes, his shoulders sag, almost as if he’s crumpling under the weight of holding himself up. His cheeks aren’t sallow, but there’s a tightness in his face. He looks ready to snap.

It almost reminds me of the way he used to be after two months in the care homes. Not that he’s skinny. No, it’s the look on his face that’s the same. Like all of the happiness has been drained out of his life and he needs time to reabsorb the things he loves.

He’s still so handsome it gives me a stomachache. But he looks broken too.

“Why’re you in my class? Why…” He’s fumbling over his words, getting redder and redder in the face, like the energy is stuck behind his teeth and has nowhere to go. “Of all the fucking English classes. Same fucking campus…Why…how…?”

“My education is not your concern. Now, please, go find someone else to terrorize.” I turn on my heel to leave.

“Wait!” I feel his fingers wrap around my arm and I freeze. They’re warm and every centimeter of my skin they touch feels like a forest fire. I’m so close to him, I can feel his breath tickling the back of my neck. 

“We’re not doing this. Not here. Not anymore, Snow.” I’m tired. I’m so tired of fighting. “Don’t touch me. Don’t follow me. In fact, I’d prefer if you would just leave me the fuck alone.”

Ever since he defeated the Humdrum, I’ve been desperate for a moment with Simon Snow. I missed him so much it hurts.

I’m overstimulated and I just want all this stupid animosity, nemesis bullshit to be finished. But we don’t know how to be decent to each other. And right now, I can’t stand it.

“Didn’t know they let vampires into universities with normal—”

I snap.

I spin around and push.

I didn’t mean to throw him. But I’m flustered, less controlled than I’ve felt in months. And my vampire strength peeks through.

Snow goes flying, his legs collide with the fountain, and (the hopeless, uncoordinated nightmare) goes tumbling into the shallow water.

Crowley. Why do we have to be this way?

Of course he gets back up. Soaked and dripping, white shirt clinging to his tawny skin.

I’m staring and I can’t stop.

There’s a crowd gathering now. Watching us come undone.

“What the fuck Baz!” He’s not hurt, not that I can see. He’s wet and gorgeous and there’s rage coming off him in waves. But he’s not hurt.

That fucking unbreakable boy. 

I close the distance and pull him out of the water. His shoes squelch like wet bread.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you meant—”

“Just calm down Snow—”

“You pushed me into a fucking fountain—”

“You chased me—”

“I just wanted to—”

“Let me spell you dry—”

“NO!”

He yells it with such intensity, I almost think there’s magic in it, and backs away from me like I’m contagious.

Simon opens his mouth and closes it, too angry to speak. He shakes his soggy curls, sending spray everywhere, and stalks away from me. A trail of water dribbles behind him, streaming from his soaked backpack. I send up a quick prayer for any notes he may’ve taken.

The crowd disperses as quickly as it formed, but I can’t move. I wish I could pretend that whatever just happened wasn’t normal for us. Some secret part of me had wished that, if we did ever see each other again, things would be different. That without the pressures of two warring worlds on our shoulders, that things would be…normal. That maybe we could start again. 

I guess I was wrong.

**Simon**

“I need to change schools.” My hair is a disaster and smells like bird shit and I’m still soaked because I can’t spell myself dry. Because I don’t have magic. And that fucking prat had to rub it in.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Penny says, dumping her backpack on the kitchen table and shuffling into one of the chairs.

“Pen, you don’t understand.” She can’t. This is a revelation. This is a worst-case scenario. This…

“Oh, you think I don’t understand your obsession with Baz? That’s cute, Simon.”

“I’m not obsessed—”

“You’ve always been obsessed. Why don’t you both just shag already and be done with it.”

“I don’t…what…are you…I don’t want to shag Baz!” I’m pretty sure I don’t. I…I’m pretty sure…

I may need to think about this. Fuck I wish I could stop thinking. Why did my brain have to fucking break?

“Sure Simon,” Penny says, pulling a textbook from her bag and cracking it open. “Sure.”


	2. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flip flops, black garbage bags, and Dr. Bazzle Dazzle Pitch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back with a second chapter of memory erasure and heartache! 
> 
> Just a head's up before reading, there's mention of child abuse and depressive symptoms in this chapter.

**BEFORE**

**Simon (18 years old)**

It’s been three hours since I laid down. I’ve counted the divots in the stucco of my ceiling. I’ve imagined myself on a beach somewhere—pictured the scene in perfect fucking detail. The sounds of the ocean are washing through my speaker (fuck the ocean). I’ve done the mindfulness bullshit and the body awareness bullshit and all of the fucking therapy bullshit and I just can’t fucking sleep.

My head feels itchy and my pillow could be a brick for all the good it’s doing me. There are tears building behind my eyes and I just...I can’t cry tonight. The tears are a special potion of anger and desperation and it makes my chest feel like it’s going to explode.

I’ve rage-cried myself to exhausted half sleep the last two nights. I can’t do it again.

For a lifetime, for the first 17 years, I just put my head down and _went_. I never really stopped to think. About anything. Now though...

Now, I can’t do anything _but_ think. The thoughts come and they come and the downward spiral of bad has me in its fucking thrall. It’s like I’m being flushed down a sink—some soggy piece of food no one cares about. I try to keep the thoughts under control. Sometimes it works. 

Not at night though.

I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night and my eyes feel like they’ve been wrapped in dryer sheets.

“Fuck this.”

I kick off my blanket and let my feet rest on the cool floor. Exhaustion makes me wobble, but anxious energy courses under my skin and I just need to breathe.

I don’t know why I do it.

I don’t even change out of my trackies (my all-purpose outfit) (I think I stopped washing my clothes) (fuck, it’s such a blur).

The clock on the microwave is a tiny beacon of green light in the dark kitchen. 3:48 am. Not exactly the safest time for a jog in a big city. But it’s not like I’ll meet anything worse than murderous goblins or a full-grown dragon

Maybe I look for trouble. Maybe I need someone to be taking a swing to feel alive. I don’t know. Right now, I don’t care.

I growl at the empty room. I don’t own proper trainers and my other shoes have holes in the soles.

So I slip into flip flops.

Fuck it. 

That first night, I fumble. I’m slow. My feet are flat and they smack hard against the cement.

But I honestly don’t give a fuck.

Because as soon as I start to move, as soon as my lungs figure out some awkward cadence with my feet, everything stops.

The thoughts retreat and I can breathe.

And so I run. I run whenever the thoughts start coming. I run when I can’t sleep. When I can’t think. When I can’t feel.

I run and I run and I run.

So that the thoughts won’t catch me.

My flat feet eventually even out. I buy trainers (my toes blistered and bled that first night) (apparently, sandals aren't meant for running) (who knew?). Swap soggy sweatpants for a pair of cheap black shorts.

Penny calls it depression. My therapist says she wants to have me assessed for PTSD.

I don’t give a fuck what they call it. I just know I need to make sure it doesn’t catch me.

**AFTER**

**Baz (25 years old)**

“Dr. Pitch?”

The florescent lights tap dance across the linoleum floor—I can feel a headache brewing behind my eyes, and I try to push it back. I cast a quick glance at my watch (5:12 pm) (this means I’ve just started my sixteenth hour of work). I try not to picture the bottle of red wine and clawfoot bathtub I am going to sink into when all of this is done (if it’s ever done) and look up at to find the origin of the voice calling my name. A tiny thing with dark blue eyes and a sharp expression. Megan. Charge nurse. Right.

“Megan, room two can be discharged. No active risk of suicidality, mental health consult complete, solid safety plan in place. Also, we’ll need admission papers drawn up for the cardiac patient in three.” Megan nods, reaching for the patient’s chart.

I do a quick survey of the wall of clipboards—all patients needing my attention. “Is there an update on room 5?” I ask as the details rush back to me. Room 5. Thirteen-year-old male. Brought in after an accident playing volleyball. After school program. Something about guardianship and consent being tangley.

Ankle was definitely fractured. But there had been some additional bruising around his collarbone. Somewhere it shouldn’t have been. Somewhere that a volleyball accident wouldn’t explain. I’d ordered additional x-rays.

“The kid’s in care, so we had to wait for his social worker,” Megan says.

“Right,” I say, my face souring as I review the results. “Is she here?”

“Yeah, **HE** is with the kid now,” Megan replies. “And let me tell you. If all social workers looked like _that_ …”

I’m halfway down the hallway, clipboard in hand, when I hear her say “I’d strip him down and admit him to my bedroom…”

Hospital sex jokes. Charming.

I push the curtain back, rolling my eyes. _Professional, Megan, real profess—_

Aleister fucking Crowley.

I can’t even fault her. The things I would do to this man are obscene.

Bronze curls spill over top of a sharp undercut. Square jaw, broad shoulders. Shorter than me, but stockier too. I can’t stop staring at the way his baby blue polo stretches across his arms (he works out. He definitely works out). There’s enough freckles and moles spattered across his neck and forearms (and probably other places too) to start his own galaxy. I can’t help myself. I want to lick patterns into his skin.

Breathe. Get yourself together, Pitch.

My patient (Dylan Edwards, I remember) is sitting in a wheelchair and this ridiculous man is bent down next to him and his pants are snug around his—

Right. I clear my throat.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Pitch. Dylan and I met earlier. I assume you’re his social worker?”

The man jumps up and turns around. “Sorry, I’m Si—” Blue eyes snap wide open and the words die on his lips.

**  
Simon**

Can brains explode?

Fuck it, of course they can. Cause mine is. Right now. A thousand mini explosions.

Holy shit it’s Baz holy shit it’s Baz holy shit it’s Baz. Baz Baz Baz. 

My mouth is hanging open (Baz would tell me to close it. Insist I was letting flies in) but I can’t help it. “Uh.” I can’t speak. “Um.” I can’t think. Holy shit. It’s Baz.

My eyes are roving over him, trying to absorb every detail (it’s been years and I’m not missing this chance, to take him in, to just fucking stare). He’s older. Still so fit it almost hurts to look at him. He’s got his hair pulled off his face in a messy bun, and Crowley, it’s a good look for him. The scrubs he’s got on fit him perfectly, and he wears them like he’s in a designer suit (probably has them tailored, the posh arsehole).

I’m hit with a rush of nostalgia that takes over every other feeling. I can’t believe the fucker did it. He must’ve. He’s a real goddamn doctor. I’m so proud of him that my chest aches with it.

“Sorry, what did you say your name was?” he says. And I swear, he’s looking at me as if I’m a stranger.

There’s a twinge in my chest; he’s tuning my heartstrings and pulling them just a bit too tight. So when I speak, it comes out of me off key.

“Um. It’s Simon.” Why? Why is he…

It’s been a long time since I accused Baz of plotting, but could he be? Trying to fuck with me because of how things ended? Cerci knows I deserve it.

I know Baz, though, and if he was gonna try and hurt me, he would’ve done it a long time ago. We’ve moved out of each other’s orbits, and it’s been that way for years. It doesn’t make sense—

“Right,” he replies, and then he kneels down next to Dylan as if I don’t exist. “So, I got your x-rays back, and you did a number on that foot,” he says, laying one of his long fingers gently against Dylan’s left ankle. “We’re going to have to cast the lower half of your leg and foot. You’ll be off your feet for at least eight weeks.”

Dylan groans. He’s gonna absolutely loathe this. Dyl’s a rowdy kid with enough energy to power a city block. That’s part of the reason he comes to the after-school programming. To let off steam.

Baz’s voice softens. “I know. I broke my ankle when I was pretty young. Lost my whole summer.”

_What? Baz, you’re unbreakable…_

It hurts to realize there are parts of him I still don’t know. Right now, his voice is almost tender and I can’t…I can’t believe I’m hearing softness aimed at a stranger.

“Nearly drove me out of my mind. But don’t worry,” he says, smiling a little. My heart stutters. “I can already tell you’ll make those crutches work for you.”

“I hate this,” Dylan grumbles.

“I know you do. But I’m sure your social worker,” Baz turns around to look up at me, “will make sure that you still get to participate in the after-school programming. Wheelchairs and crutches can be accommodated if you’re creative enough.”

His grey eyes look straight through me. And there’s nothing behind them. No pain. No warmth. No nothing.

What. The. Fuck.

“I’ll let the nurses know and they’ll bring you down orthopedics.” Baz pushes himself to his feet, and he’s looking down at me again. Those three fucking inches. Get me every time.

“Simon, do you mind if we speak for a moment outside?”

Oh.

Well that settles it, then. He called me Simon. Baz (my Baz) would never... he only ever called me Simon…maybe three times. Once when he was curled up into my chest on a lazy Sunday morning. Another time after I took him out for his birthday. And then, the night that everything went wrong.

But never casually. Not like this.

I don’t understand it. It shouldn’t be possible. But I can feel the truth settling into my bones.

Baz doesn’t know me.

“Uh, yeah,” I stammer. “Sure.”

Baz slips through the curtain and starts walking, and I have to half jog to keep up. Those long fucking legs.

I had no idea that emergency departments were so…big. It’s like the waiting room is just the tip of the iceberg—the outside of a Tardis. It’s so much bigger on the inside. As Baz walks down the corridor away from Dylan’s room, bodies rush around us, hurrying, chattering, moving and I feel like I’m in an anthill without directions.

Baz slips into an open door and I hurry in behind him. There’s a fridge, a kettle, a toaster with someone’s bagel in it (definitely gone cold). “Sorry for the accommodations. My office is across the hospital on outpatient and I don’t have a lot of time.”

“S’fine,” I say. “What’s uh…what’s this about?”

Baz is fiddling with the clipboard in front of him—it’s because I know him (even if he doesn’t know me) that I can tell he’s nervous. He doesn’t fiddle unless he’s nervous.

“Dylan had some bruising around his clavicle and neck that did not appear to be related to the presenting incident.”

“Bruising?”

Baz nods, his expressions shifting from casual to serious. I love him like this.

“I ordered a few exploratory scans, just to be sure. Simon,” his eyes darken slightly, “there’s evidence of several fractures that healed but were never treated. I believe what I’m seeing here indicates a long history of physical abuse. Now this may be a result of previous trauma that has already been addressed but—”

“Dyl’s been in a long-term foster home placement for years.” For the first time since Baz walked into Dylan’s exam room, I stop thinking about him. “Bloody hell.” I rub my hand across my chin.

“I don’t want to tell you how to do your job,” Baz says, “but I believe this merits investigation.”

I feel my jaw tighten and try to control the anger that’s starting to surge through me. “Thank you, B—Dr. Pitch. I know what to do from here.”

Silence stretches between us. Those stormy eyes are staring at me. Rage and relief and want are churning in my chest and the feelings have nowhere to go.

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, tilting his head just sideways, a slight furrow appearing between his eyebrows. “This is going to sound strange. But have we met?”

As soon as he says it, I can tell he’s embarrassed. Not that anyone else would know. Anyone else would see the same serious face. But there’s a tinge of pink on the tips of his ears and I know. I know I know I know.

What I don’t know is what to say. I don’t know what to tell him or how to explain. So I don’t.

“Uh, I don’t think so.”

“Of course. My mistake.”

“Hey, um,” I stutter. “Thanks for everything.” The words are empty, but the idea of him leaving makes chest feel tight.

He waves his hand to tell me that it was nothing. “If you need anything from me,” Baz says, tearing a piece of paper from the pad on his clip board, “please don’t hesitate to call. I can provide documentation or a statement outlining Dylan’s visit, if needed.”

Our fingers touch as he slips me paper and, fuck, the feeling’s still electric. “Th—thanks.” If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to explode. Or I’m gonna kiss him. Both of those options seem bad.

“Dr. Pitch, call extension 2357. Dr. Pitch, 2357.”

Baz seems to snap out of it. “That’s me.”

“Right.”

“It was nice to meet Mr… I’m sorry. I didn’t get your last name?”

I smile. I can’t help myself. “Snow,” I say. “Simon Snow.”

**Baz**

“Sheila, he’s a fucking Disney prince.” I’m practically squawking but I don’t have the good sense to be embarrassed.

Sheila shifts a stack of patient files off my chair and sits down next to me in my office. The look on her face is equal parts regret and pity.

Sheila is a nurse in the OR, a giant at six two, with a broad chest and defined muscles (I asked her about her biceps once after a few too many glasses of wine and she told me she was a semi-professional body builder for years) (she also said that if I breathed a word of that to anyone, she would show me exactly what those muscles could do).

She’s ruthless and better than anyone else at finding a vein. The towering woman muscled her way into my life and I don’t know how I would get through these long days without her.

“Which prince?” she asks, quite seriously. “There’s a difference between an Eric and a Phillip.”

I hide my face in my hands. “It don’t even know,” I say. “He’s golden and fit and good. And exudes a general prince-ly energy.”

“Oh dear,” she says.

“Oh dear indeed,” I moan.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you gone on anyone before,” she says, thumping me on the back in a way I think she means to be affectionate.

“I gave him my number.”

Sheila narrows her eyes at me. “Your work number?”

I can’t find the words. I just shake my head.

“Your personal number?”

“What other numbers are there?”

“Bazzle dazzle,” she says, giving me a playful shove.

“Call me that again Sheila and I will tear your throat out.”

She ignores me. “I think this is a moment worth celebrating,” she says, giving me a long look.

I know that look. It ends in boozy nights in dingy bars and nasty hangovers.

“I can’t.”

“You gave a bloke your number! You. Introverted—”

“—Hey—"

“—Pompous—”

“—That’s blatantly unfair—”

“—Stick-up-your ass Pitch.”

“Really?”

Sheila shrugs. “I’m proud of you. And you know it’s true. Now, enough whinging. Let’s get you properly sloshed. To celebrate the tiny chance you won’t die alone.”

I’d planned on hot water and a wineglass and Netflix. And maybe a quick wank to how the Disney-prince’s pants had stretched around his arse.

“Who the fuck names their kid Simon Snow?” I can’t get the way he’d looked at me out my head. There was familiarity there. There must’ve been. Or maybe I’m romanticizing the tiny moment in the kitchen. Because I’m hopeless. 

“I need a drink in me before I listen to more of your pining.”

“Fuck off,” I say, but start to pack up my things.

_Who are you Simon Snow?_

**Simon**

You know when people say that days pass in a blur?

Yeah, I wish that shit was real. The last few days have been the opposite of blurry; they’ve been sharp and painful and fucking brutal.

I can only imagine how Dyl feels. He’s staying at an emergency placement group home now and leaving him there didn’t sit well.

He knows I was in care. Most of my kids do. I think that helps. I hope it does.

We’ve both packed our shit up into black garbage bags and hauled it from one failed home to another. It’s a weird thing, seeing everything that you have on this planet stretch inside cheap plastic. Feels like people are throwing you away.

A foster home investigation is always messy. Abuse allegations are messier. Piles and piles of paperwork, dealings with the cops, and interviews that suck the air out of the room and make even the most steady person squirm. Mrs. Anderson screamed and screamed, denial twisting to excuses, twisting to rage. Mr. Anderson just sat there and cried quietly. What a fucking mess.

But the worst part of all of this are those fucking plastic bags.

It’s Friday and I’m sitting next to Dylan on the front steps of the emergency home. He’s too young for this shit—but we always are. There’s some sixteen and seventeen-year-olds staying here and Christ I’m worried about him.

All of this passes unsaid. I lay a hand on his shoulder.

Eventually, he says, “You know, they weren’t so bad. It’s kinda fucked, but they were some of the good ones. Even if she was hitting me. At least I had…”

“A home.”

“Yeah.”

The sun is setting against the skyline. I feel the tiniest weight settle against my shoulder; Dyl's leaning on me and can feel him shaking. I try not to move, to breathe in too deep, to say anything at all. Cause he needs this. I don't want to break this moment. 

Even in the shitty parts of a city, on the shittiest days, the sunsets can still be beautiful. It’s unfair and comforting all at once.

…

The heaviness of my day weighs a thousand pounds on my chest. I need to cry or yell. Maybe that’s why I drive across town to Penny’s. Maybe it’s because I need to do both.

As I buzz up, I can feel the tears building. I can feel the dam swelling, struggling to contain everything that’s going on in my head. I won’t manage for much longer.

My knuckles barely graze the door and she flings it open, charging through, and wrapping her arms around my waist.

It knocks the wind out of me and I’m so grateful for this wild woman. I pat the top of her frizzy curls and crack my first smile in days.

“Right,” she says, pulling me inside. “Let’s get you a drink.”

It doesn’t take two hours, and we’re both a mess of booze and legs, sprawled out on the floor of Penny’s living room (she doesn’t trust drunk me on her couch since I spilled wine on the white polyester).

“Oh shit!” I say, slamming my beer down on the coffee table, and sending foam spurting up through the neck of the bottle. “Fuck sorry.” Penny waves me off. There’s a red tinge to her cheeks that tell me she’s properly sloshed. I’m definitely sleeping here tonight.

“I can’t believe I didn’t tell you right away!”

“Tell me what?”

I swallow slowly, preparing myself for the revelation. She is going to lose her shit. “I saw Baz fucking Pitch on Wednesday.”

The reaction is so much better than I expected. I catch her with the blow mid swallow, and she spits most of her gin all over the place. Beer and soda mingle in a sticky mess on the coffee table, but we’re too gone to care.

“SIMON NO!”

“Oh fuck, that’s not even the best part.” I push myself up on my elbows. “I’m gonna need your big brain for this one. Pen, he didn’t fucking recognize me.”

The colour that has tinged her cheeks completely drains.

“Oh no,” she says.

“Right! I think someone’s spelled him. We need to figure out who and fix this.”

“Oh Simon,” Penny says, scooting across the floor and laying an awkward hand on my arm.

“Don’t ‘oh Simon’ me,” I say, bristling a little. If I’m gonna figure out what happened to Baz, I’m gonna need her help.

“But,” she bites her lower lip. It’s a nervous tick and I don’t like it right now. “Are you sure that this isn’t…you know. For the best?”

“What the fuck do you mean?” I say. The anger from before is returning in full force.

“Simon, you kind of…” she takes a deep breath and I know the next sentence is not going to be good. “You kind of broke Baz’s heart, didn’t you.”

This is something we don’t talk about. It is territory that is charted and intentionally avoided. It’s a minefield of volatile emotions and some of my darkest days of depression and self-sabotage.

Shame is an ugly thing and its churning in my guts. “What the fuck do you know?” I growl.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” she says, still holding onto my arm. “It’s just. What if he did it for…you know….a reason?”

“You think Baz fucked with his own memories? Like. On purpose?”

Penny’s eyes are looking anywhere but mine. Almost two decades of friendship gives her away. “You know something.” My voice is low and dangerous.

“I don’t!”

“Pen our no secrets pact!” I feel betrayed. And confused. And…I have to take a piss.

“Fuck, Simon, he made me promise.”

“Who did?”

“Baz!” she shouts.

“What did he tell you?”

There are tears welling in Penny’s eyes behind her thick red glasses. I can see her thoughts fighting with each other, trying to figure out what is best and right and fair. And I see the moment her resolve snaps.

“He…he erased you, Simon.”

“He what?”

“He had you erased.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” My voice warbles and my thoughts race. Images of his grey eyes, fucking ruthless, as I know he’s about to kiss me. Of checking my phone for something, for some reply to the message I sent him every day for a year. Of the look that he gave me in the hospital. Blank. Empty. Unfamiliar.

“It’s a procedure. They do it with magic. Go in and just…take away all of the memories.”

“And he told you?”

Penny’s tears are still streaking down her cheeks as she nods. “It was years ago. The day after…after you…”

I can’t breathe.

“He came to our flat. And he told me. I tried to talk him out of it Si. I tried. But you know Baz. You know how he gets.”

I know. I know. I know.

All of the knots are undone, and the story is tumbling out. “He didn’t come to explain. He came to say…to say sorry. Cause he couldn’t see me anymore. Cause…well, you know…”

“Cause of me. Cause he didn’t want to see me.”

Penny nods. “He knows I’d never leave you, Simon. He came…” she chokes on her words, “to say goodbye.”

“You didn’t tell me,” I whisper. “You knew. As I was burning up and falling apart and…you never told me.”

“He made me promise—”

“Not good enough!” There it is. Anger. Fighting stance. Familiar. I need this.

“I’m sorry.”

“He was the love of my life.”

“Did you ever tell him that?”

She knows I didn’t. It’s a low fucking blow. My voice box compresses.

The room is suddenly too hot, too cramped, too dizzy. I need to get out. I need air. I need to run.

“I gotta go,” I say, stumbling to my feet.

“No please,” Penny says, trying to pull me back down. “You’re drunk. Just sleep it off on my couch.”

I shake her off. “I’ll pick my car up tomorrow.”

“Simon wait! Don’t do this.”

I slam her door behind me.

…

The air washes cool across my burning skin. I feel heat radiating off me in waves—fueled by rage and beer and shame. I shake my head against the breeze and feel it roll over my scalp, soothing my sweaty curls.

My footsteps are unsteady at first (I’ve always been a lightweight), but the fight with Penny sobered me up quick. Crowley, we haven’t fought like that in years.

I’m not in the right shoes (fuck, I’m in trousers and a button down) but it doesn’t matter. The pavement is steady and my strides are evening out.

The first time I ran like this, I was in flip flops. I remember my toes bled all over my sheets (I didn’t even notice till morning) (because running makes the thoughts go away) (and the relief overpowered the pain).

I need that now. I don’t wanna think about Baz. About what he must’ve felt. About how I drove him to a place so ugly that he would rather erase me than live with the memories.

No. I can’t think right now.

I let my body find its rhythm. The cadence of breathing, pavement, and the white noise of the city at night.

The thoughts retreat and I can breathe.

I know I can’t run forever (that the thoughts eventually catch up) (it’s a hard lesson and I learned it with Baz).

But for now…I can run for now. 


	3. Constellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disney-themed shot glasses, chalkboard paint, Snowclones, and lines traced against skin (tender and intense, soft and ravenous).

**AFTER**

**Simon (25 years old)**

I’m swaddled in a cocoon of steam; it’s crawling into my lungs, it’s saturating my skin, it’s cleansing the poison from my guts. Crowley, I feel lousy.

When the world gives you a hangover, I give up and crawl into the shower. Showers are warm. They are safe. They are private (if I’m gonna be sick, I’d rather do it here). Porcelain tile and the smooth white tub feel like the hug I so desperately need right now.

The water is spraying my back as my face hangs between my knees. There’s a writhing headache behind my eyes that pulses in time with my heart and I’ve still got my trousers on—they’re soaked and stretched against my thighs.

_Baz would lose his mind if he could see this._

The pain in my head twitches. Baz fucking Pitch.

He’s not the kind of bloke you get over (how could you? How could anyone?) I tried. For years, I tried.

I don’t remember much of what happened after I left Penny’s last night. I’ve got a matching set of blisters bulging on the backs of my heels. Popping those is gonna be hellish and I resist the urge to prod the bubbles. My lungs feel like they’ve been run down with sandpaper but, honestly, none of that is really even registering.

_He erased you._

He wouldn’t. Not the Baz I know. He wouldn’t do that. Baz’d wanna keep the memories (right?) Better to have loved and lost and all that shit?

_He had you erased._

My vision is blurring, sending the freckles on my arms in and out of focus.

Baz loved my moles. He would trace them with his tongue. With his fingertips. He would make a whole world out of my skin.

If I close my eyes, I can almost hear him. A soft whisper meant just for me. _You don’t need to come out here to see the stars, Snow._

I let my fingers follow the familiar patterns into my forearm. “Cassiopeia,” I whisper. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the ghost of a memory, tender and intense, soft and ravenous.

I couldn’t cry yesterday. Anger burnt everything, cauterized the inside of my beer-addled brain. But today, as the shower washes me clean, I can feel it—the gooey Baz shaped wound in my chest.

“Lyra,” I say so quietly that I can maybe pretend that it’s his voice and not mine. That he’s settled into the shower behind me, wrapped his long arms around my chest. I can almost feel him—tracing the universe into my skin, as I come undone.

**BEFORE**

**Baz (18 years old)**

“So, you’ve been extra bitchy lately.” Dev’s got his notes spread across the table. I can see speckles of food and what looks like a splash of coffee staining some of the pages. Disgusting.

It’s the fourth week of classes and the early term deadlines are approaching fast. Dev (infinite moron) was lulled into a false sense of calm by the crisp fall air and a none-of-this-is-due-till-October attitude; he’s paying for it. There’s panic in the manic lines of his political science essay outline—I think he’s trying to write about early twentieth century Russian politics (there’s a Joe Rogan quote in the margins) (not a good sign).

“I think the adjective you’re looking for is driven.” I pause and sip my coffee. “Maybe uncompromising.”

“No, I mean bitchy.”

“I’m with Dev on this one,” Niall says, looking up from his intro philosophy textbook.

“I resent that.”

“Suit yourself,” Niall says, and returns his attention to the monstrous anthology spread across our table.

But Dev’s still looking at me. Probably fixated on anything that is not the mountain of work he needs to finish before Friday.

“You’ve been weird since you got into it with Snow,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me. Dev saw the tail end of our confrontation. Saw Snow stalking away, dripping wet. Saw me standing like I’d been caught in the blast radius of a nuclear bomb. Maybe I had. Dev has refused to drop it ever since.

“I resent that too,” I say, taking the lid off of my coffee cup and blowing gently. “Did it every occur to you that I’m adjusting to my classes? That not everything is about Snow?”

“For someone normal, maybe,” Dev says. “But not you Baz.”

“Everything’s about Snow,” Niall mumbles, as he chews on the end of his pen.

“Just fucking tell us.”

”No.”

I’m blushing and I hate it. I hate everything about this. Who needs friends? Overrated wastes of space and time and—

“Cause it can work now!” Dev says, slamming his hands on the table, startling a group of girls at the next table. “You don’t have to kill each other! It’s perfect.”

“Oh yes. Now that we aren’t duelling to the death, Snow and I will magically fall in love and ride happily into the sunset.”

Dev nods at me encouragingly. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“You’re an idiot with the IQ of a troglodyte.”

“Jokes on you. I don’t know what that is.”

“My point exactly.”

“Pretty sure you’re being bitchy again.”

I roll my eyes so hard I give myself a headache.

The truth is, things _are_ going better with Snow. Well, maybe better is too generous an adjective. But they are certainly _going_ —there is a force and a direction and that has to mean something.

Three weeks ago, I cornered him after class. I didn’t plan it. I wasn’t going to do it. But the sandy haired Beiber knock off was sitting too close (it was rude, is what it was), was chatting with him at every available moment (clearly a slacker on top of being an idiot with an offensive haircut), and Snow was laughing. Actually laughing.

After the period finally ended, I was halfway up the lecture hall before I knew what was happening. No plan. No words rehearsed. Nothing.

“Snow,” I said, interrupting whatever hilarious thing they were chatting about.

Those plain blue eyes snapped up immediately and something inside me stirred.

_He still looks for me. I’m still the thing he can’t help but focus on._

I used to find comfort in Snow’s obsession, but it’s not enough anymore. I’m not sure when that happened and I’m even less sure about what I’m going to do now.

“I have notes.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Uh…”

“To replace the ones that you probably ruined last week. When you went for an…unexpected swim.”

“You mean when you threw me in the fountain?”

I gritted my teeth against the insults that were desperate to fly out ( _No, you clumsy halfwit, when you managed to fall into the only body of water in at least a mile_ ). “Yes,” I answered instead. 

His eyes nearly bulged out of his head. I took advantage of the silence, slipping my annotated, colour-coded notes from the last week’s worth of our English class onto his desk.

“Baz,” he said, looking up at me. There was something soft in his eyes and it hit me like a punch to the gut. “Are you…giving me your notes?”

“So it would appear,” I said, sighing as exaggeratedly as I could manage, trying to seem aloof. “Don’t get food all over them.” I’d turned and walked away then, only looking back as I slipped through the large doors of the lecture hall. Snow was still staring at me—not with love or affection, but at least the sandy-haired halfwit was forgotten by his side.

Two weeks ago, I’d spotted him at the library, sitting alone with a table full of papers. The urge to stare at Snow pulled like fucking gravity, but I didn’t want him to catch me at it, so I tried to turn and walk in the other direction.

But he’d seen me. He waved me over. And, miracle of fucking miracles, I went. For three glorious hours, I’d sat with Simon Snow, studying in mostly silence. We didn’t fight. Not once.

And this week…well this week, I slid into the seat next to him in class. And he didn’t even flinch.

“Look,” Dev says, leaning across the table. “We can pretend it’s not Snow that’s got your panties in a twist.”

“Dev,” I say, my voice dipping dangerously.

“But,” he says, rambling on, “I think we should all go out this weekend. Help you with this…” he gestures at me, “tense bitchy vibe you’ve got going. We can all unwind a bit, you know?”

“Can we?” Niall says, his head popping up out of his book. “Honestly, I expected university to be different than Watford. Thought we’d finally get to let loose. But all I’ve been doing is paper after paper.” Red hair falls into his eyes and I know he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in days.

“We need this!” Dev says, his face settling into firm determination. “C’mon Baz, you can find a nice Snow clone—

“Would you stop—”

“And we can all get properly drunk. Like college kids are supposed to do!”

“Is that a rallying cry,” I say, trying to sound sarcastic.

But it just glances off. Dev is practically beaming. “You’re goddamn right it is.”

…

I should’ve known that this was a bad idea from the start.

I should’ve felt it as we crossed the quad Friday afternoon and Dev pumped his fist into the air in jubilation (his work was terrible) (more blog post than paper) (I’ll have to teach him to properly outline).

I should’ve seen it in the way that Niall looked down at Dev through his tawny eyelashes—I’ve been wondering when he would find the courage to just tell Dev already (he’s been lusting after Dev almost as long as I’ve been pining after Snow).

I definitely should’ve seen the writing on the wall when we started shooting whiskey from Disney-themed shot glasses.

Needless to say, I ignored my better instincts.

**Simon**

“So, on the record, just want to say that this is a terrible idea.” Complaints need to be on the record, or Penny will pretend that they never happened.

“Less whining more painting,” she says, wiping some sweat off her forehead.

Penny wanted a wall-sized chalk board (“It’ll definitely help me organize my thoughts!”). I thought it was a bad idea. (“Pen, I’m a walking mess and even I know that there’s gonna be chalk dust everywhere!”) Penny (because she’s Penny) insisted.

It’s a Friday afternoon and the last of the autumn warmth is streaming in on sunbeams through our white curtains. And instead of basking in the perfection of what will probably be our last quality fall day, I’m in here. In an old pair of jeans (that I cut off to shorts with kitchen scissors) and a ratty t-shirt I’ve had since I was in care. Holding a paint roller as a glob of chalkboard paint leaks down my arm. Painting Penny a fucking chalkboard accent wall in the middle of the living room.

“You gonna go to Sylvie’s thing tonight?”

I dip the roller into the paint tray and slosh it around. “Naw.”

“C’mon Si. She’s cute, even by Agatha standards.”

Even a brief mention of Agatha makes me flinch a little. Not because I don’t care about her (I do) and not because I still love her (I don’t. Not like that). But because we never found the time to smooth things over. To get the conversation right. Maybe it’s because I’m terrible with words (that’s what I tell myself when I want to feel better). But I’m pretty sure it’s because I never really knew the real Agatha. I knew what I _wanted_ her to be (destiny, endgame, and happily ever after).

But I didn’t really put in the time to know _her_. The version of her that existed outside of me. I wish I had. And now she’s across the ocean and I still haven’t made it right.

“Simon?” Penny’s voice cuts back into my thoughts and jars me out of what definitely could’ve been a bad-thought-spiral.

“Sorry, what?”

“Sylvie. She’s cute. And she was flirting with you.”

“Doubt that,” I mutter, squishing the roller onto the wall and smoothing out the dark paint.

“She was practically hanging off of you!” Penny drops her brush onto a sheet of newspaper we’ve got spread across the floor and pantomimes what had been a very uncomfortable interaction on the quad after class. “Seriously. She couldn’t stop touching you.”

I shudder a little. “I know. Wasn’t really a fan.”

There are speckles of paint dusting Penny’s nose. She’s frowning a little. “Are you okay?”

 _Not really, no._ “I’m fine.”

“We could both go? Get out of the flat.” She looks around at the mess we’ve made. Green painter’s tape, newspaper and cardboard everywhere. An old sheet with paint drops all over it. “The fumes are gonna be brutal tonight. It’d be nice to get out.”

She’s right. I know she’s right. It’s not like I’m gonna sleep anyway. But I just…can’t.

Cause Baz might be there.

I heard Dev chatting with Sylvie on my way across campus yesterday and I know she asked him to go. I know that Baz isn’t really into these kinds of things, but if he showed up and I saw him there…

Things have been…well, they’ve been proper weird the last few weeks. If I didn’t know him better, I would say that he was trying to be _nice_ to me. Which definitely means he’s plotting. Because Baz isn’t nice. Brilliant, maybe. Fit as hell. Perfect and singularly driven to get everything he wants. But not nice. At least, not to me.

The weird thing is that I want it to be real. I’m so tired of fighting. This twilight zone of politeness and something that almost feels friendly is so nice. I catch myself looking for him everywhere—almost as bad as it was in fifth year. I look forward to that god-awful English class. And I nearly passed out when he sat next to me the other day. My heart felt like it was beating right out of my chest.

“Please? Simon?” Penny crosses the room and wraps her paint-covered arms around my waist. “I’m worried about you. Do it for me?”

_I can do this. It’s just a party. It’ll be good for me._

“You’re the worst,” I mutter, and feel her squeeze me even tighter.

“That’s a yes then?”

I groan and peel her off me. “Let’s just get this stupid wall finished.”

**Baz**

I step out of the Uber and into the night air. It’s too late to turn back now. My legs feel wobbly and everything around me is fraying at the edges, but my blood’s singing.

“You brought us to a house party,” I half shout as I see the trail of bodies spilling into the street. We’re in one of the neighborhoods infamous for its student housing population—which is shorthand for loud, cheap, and busy on Friday nights. “How do you find these things?”

Dev turns to look back at me and flashes a smile full of mirth (his good mood is contagious and I feel my mouth grinning in spite of myself). “Try talking to the people you sit next to sometime, yeah? It helps with the whole making friends thing.”

“Tosser.”

“You love it.”

And in this exact moment, I do.

The house is a two-story detached lump of a place, chopped up into tiny rooms and sold to students for amounts they can’t afford. The front door is propped wide open and there are people everywhere, hanging over the couches, crowded around the kitchen table, spilling out into the back garden.

“Fuck,” Dev breathes as he looks around, eyes alight. He bumps his shoulder into Niall. “This letting loose enough for you?”

Niall swallows. “There’s gotta be a hundred people here.”

This is all miles outside of our normal and I think we all know it. I wonder if Niall feels as nervous as I do. Probably. I’ve always been better at pretending. Niall needs a good night. We all do. I steel myself and stare down the scene in front of me.

“Come on lads. Let’s go find a drink.”

...

“Y’know, parties are overrated,” Niall says as we make our way outside onto the back deck. “Everyone’s too drunk to be useful.”

We lost Dev twenty minutes ago, to a blonde nursing student named Cindy. Niall’s mood dipped dramatically.

He’s ranting now, as he sinks into the padded lawn chair. I settle down next to him. “And how’re you supposed to hear anything?”

The bass is so loud, I think the entire street is vibrating. “How indeed,” I say, closing my eyes and enjoying the fresh air as it washes over me. It’s a welcome change from the smell of stale beer and sweat.

I hear Niall let out a long sigh beside me. “I was gonna tell him, y’know,” he whispers. “I thought that maybe tonight, if we had a good time and I drank a bit, felt brave…”

He pauses and I let him sort through his thoughts. “I was gonna try to tell him.”

“It’s not too late,” I say, bringing the bottle of piss-poor beer to my lips and taking a long swallow.

Niall snorts. “He’s gonna have his tongue down some girl’s throat before the night is out. No Baz,” he says, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. “You’re more likely to shag Snow than I am to tell Dev how I…”

“I still want him,” I whisper. I don’t know why I say it. Maybe it’s a measly peace offering, sharing the battle scars of unrequired love as we sit alone and wanting. Or maybe I just need to say it out loud.

“I know you do,” Niall says. “If you ever want to talk this out. You know. When you’re mostly sober?”

“Highly unlikely.”

“Still,” Niall says. “I’ll listen.”

Something in my throat constricts. Alright, maybe friends are worth the time of day—at least, these ones are.

“And I know you’re not one for consolation prizes,” Niall says, his tone shifting from serious to something else. “But there’s a bloke over there who’s been staring at you since we walked in. And he kinda looks like your chosen one.”

I raise one eyebrow at him and take another long drink. I’m going to need courage for this. “Where?”

“Leaning against the sliding door.”

I turn my head and catch a glimpse of golden curls. Shit.

“Like what you see?” Niall says, half laughing.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” My heart is stuttering in my chest (as much as a vampire heart can stutter).

“You gonna do anything about it?” There’s a challenge in Niall’s voice, and I’m never one to back down.

I sit up, lay my beer on the cheap plastic table, and turn to face the door. Golden curls is looking at me. I lift my eyes and stare right back.

He bites his lower lip and I can’t look away. He’s taller than Snow. A bit sharper, with no freckles to speak of. But I’m not thinking about that (I refuse to think about that).

I lift my hand and crook my finger at him. _There’s no way this works._ “Come here,” I mouth.

A wolfish grin tugs at his lips (thinner than Snow’s) and he pushes away from the people crowding around him and starts towards us.

“I fucking hate you,” Niall says, as he gets to his feet. “I’m not sticking around for this. I’m gonna go find Dev.”

“Right,” I say, barely paying him any attention. Golden curls is crossing the room, looking at me like I’m something to eat. I try not to gulp. I try to pretend that I’m keeping my cool. “Right.”

And that’s how I end up sitting outside on the sagging back deck with my back pressed into damp lawn furniture, and a Snow clone straddling my lap.

Thick curls tickle my chin as his lips sear kisses down my neck. Every point of contact feels messy and hot and I’m still trying to accept that this is happening while also being too drunk to care. I swallow the moan that’s desperate to get out. I’m in public. I have dignity. I’m a fucking Pitch.

His body is pressed flush against mine, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination (he’s hard) (fuck, he’s hard) (as his tongue traces a stripe back up to my ear, I think I’ll be right there with him in a minute).

This is a bad idea. The worst idea. I’m dizzy and I want to rut into him, I’m so desperate for friction, for someone to touch me, and my head is so hot, I feel like I’m going mad. I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.

Just for tonight, I can let myself have this. Can let the gentle haze of the shots and the beer smudge this stranger into Snow.

If I look at his hair under the dim lighting, I can pretend his golden curls match. I can imagine that there are freckles dusting his neck. I’ve been doing it since I was fifteen. This should be easy.

The smell of smoke and cinnamon and Simon creep into my nostrils. _There it is._ My mouth is hanging open and I feel the air rush out of my chest. His hands are moving down, palming me through my jeans. _That’s it, Snow. Just like that._ I’m going to combust.

I open my eyes, lust drunk and dizzy. And that’s when I see him. Not the boy draped on top of me. But _him._ Really him. Simon bloody Snow. He’s standing across the room, eyes the size of dinner plates, mouth wide open. Crowley, I’m too good at this; my dreams are spilling out into the world.

Because he can’t be real. There’s no way…

Our eyes meet, bright blue sinking into grey.

_Oh._

_He’s real. He’s definitely real._

Golden curls is kissing up my jawline and I let him, never breaking eye contact with Simon. If he wants to stare, I’ll match him. It’s what we do. He pushes and I push back. I won’t look away. I can’t. My eyes are wide open as golden curls kisses the corner of my mouth. _Come get me Snow._ For the first time that night, I lean my head back and let myself moan.

I think I’ve broken him. Simon’s face is a tableau of the emotions that churn inside of him—anger shifts to confusion and finally lands on…jealousy? No, that can’t be right. But there’s a violent flush of red creeping up his neck and into his cheeks.

And then the spell breaks; he turns around, and practically runs back inside.

“What the fuck,” I whisper.

“Hmmm,” golden boy says against my neck.

I push him off me.

“Hey, what the—”

“It’s not enough,” I say to no one. Nothing will ever compare to the real thing. Snow is his own brand of disaster and he’s the only kind that I want right now.

I leave golden boy on the lawn chair. Fuck everything. Fuck caution. Fuck rules. Fuck inhibitions and years of trauma and fear. I’m going after Snow.

The crush of bodies presses down on me as I squeeze back inside. I see a flash of Snow, throwing on a brown leather jacket and disappearing through the front door, out into the night.

_Shit._

Through the humming music and scattered plastic cups, I see Dev. He’s moving with the determination of a bull ready to charge and a grim look on his face. “Dev!” I call out.

“Not now Baz,” he hollers back and continues his warpath through the crowd. What the—

But I don’t have time to process, to even consider chasing my cousin. Because my phone is buzzing.

A smirking redhead pops up on the screen. Niall.

I swipe my thumb and press the phone to my ear.

“Niall, I don’t have time—”

“I told him, Baz. I told him. He was making out with Cindy and I kinda snapped and I told him. And he didn’t say anything and then I ran cause now he’s gonna hate me and he thinks I’m disgusting and what am I gonna do Baz.”

Merlin and Morgana. I’m too drunk (and, frankly, too aroused) to deal with this right now. “Niall breathe,” I say into the speaker. “Find a place where you’re alone and just breathe.”

“Right. Okay.” I hear the sounds of music and voices and I can’t tell if it’s the phone or the people around me.

“We’ll figure this out,” I say, trying to ignore the feeling of panic squeezing my chest. _What if I can’t find Snow?_ Every second that passes sends my anxiety spiking.

“Yeah, okay. I just…” His voice breaks. “I think I really fucked up and OH FUCK BAZ HE’S COMING.”

“Niall—”

The phone goes dead.

It’s too much. I need some air. I need to get out. I need to leave.

I pull up our group message and send a quick text.

_Baz (1:02 am): I’m going home now. When you both figure your shit out, let me know._

…

The city at night is its own creature—dark skies unfurling, streetlights blinking like half lidded eyeballs, the sound of traffic a constant reminder that blood pumps through the arteries of this urban monster.

I’ve been walking for a while now (at least twenty minutes). I don’t know if I’m looking for Snow anymore. I was at first, but his square shoulders and flash of golden hair are nowhere to be found.

I don’t want to go home just yet. The streets are residential and mostly empty. I should go home, should write this night off as the gargantuan fuck up it is, but the city is tugging at me and the fresh air is sharpening my senses.

No, not home. Not just yet.

I let my thoughts drift with my feet.

The feeling of wet kisses on my neck. The bullish rage twisting Dev’s face. The mania in Niall’s voice. The flush that spread up Snow’s lovely neck. The way his mouth hung open and his eyes stared at me like they wanted something.

_Wanted me._

Crowley, what a night.

There’s a bridge up ahead. Something simple and unexceptional and small, hovering over a body of water (probably a man-made lake or tiny tributary). I wander towards it, pulling the collar of my coat up against the breeze.

I wonder if Snow will talk to me on Monday. We have our four o’clock class. I wonder if I can recreate that blush…

I look up as I reach the bridge and, for the first time, notice that I’m not alone up here. There’s someone standing on the opposite end, leaning on the railing, staring out over the water.

He’s in a t-shirt (insanity on a cold night like this) with a brown leather jacket draped across one arm. With golden hair and shoulders worth wanking over.

I found him.

In middle of this horrible night in this messy city.

It’s Simon.

**Simon**

I hear him coming before he looks up. There’s always been something special about the way Baz looks at me. Like his eyes can reach out and trace lines into my skin.

I feel them now. Carving me open. His footsteps have stopped.

“I know you’re there, Baz,” I say, because, tonight, I don’t want a fight.

I look up and, Crowley, he takes my breath away. His dark hair is falling loose around his face, shifting with the wind off the water. His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his dark coat that’s shifting around him. He looks like he walked off an advert for fancy cologne.

I rub my arms, a bit self conscious of my stretched t-shirt, hyper aware of the tears in my jeans. Usually this makes me hate him. He’s so put together and I’m so…not. Tonight though, I just don’t have the energy for it. Tonight, I just take him in.

He doesn’t say anything. No sharp quips or barbed insults. He just settles next to me, leaning his forearms on the edge of the bridge, and staring out over the water.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, not looking up. Having him this close is giving me goosebumps.

He sighs. It’s a deep, haggard thing. “Would you like honesty or something simpler, Snow?” He sounds almost as tired as I feel.

“Whatever you wanna give me.”

It takes him a while to answer. But that’s okay. I can wait. “I was looking for you.”

A laugh escapes me. “Isn’t it usually the other way around? You know, me following you everywhere?”

“Typically,” he says and it sounds like he’s smiling. You wouldn’t think you could pick a smile out of a single word, but Baz is the one subject I’m an expert in. “I wasn’t expecting to see you. What were you doing there?” No accusations. The words aren’t meant for a fight. It sounds like he just…wants to know.

So I tell him. It sounds so simple, it makes me wonder why we haven’t been doing it this way all along.

“I live nearby. Couple girls from Soc asked me. Pen said I should go.” _I haven’t been out of the house for anything except class in months. It’s hard to get out of my bed most days. My feelings don’t turn off and I can’t block it out anymore. Something ugly is inside of me and I secretly hope being around other people will help keep me from drowning._ “You know,” I say, “reasons. You?”

Baz snorts. (Baz snorts!) “Dev.”

“This is suddenly making a lot more sense.”

“Embarrassment of a relation. But with good intentions, I suppose,” Baz says, sounding almost fond.

For a while, neither of us say anything. Just let the soft sounds off the water trickle by. There’s something different about tonight. If I still had my magic, I could probably feel it. Baz isn’t plotting and I’m not saving the world. We’re not roommates on opposing sides of a war. I’m not even mad about him throwing me in the fountain—haven’t been for a while. I’m just so tired… and maybe he is too.

“You came after me, yeah?” I don’t know why I ask. Maybe it was something in the way he looked at me, while some stranger sucked on his neck. Something hot is pooling in my stomach and for the first time in months, I feel alive.

“I didn’t think I’d find you,” he says, in profile, still staring out over the water. “Thought you’d be long gone.”

“I like it here.” It’s late and if he’s going with honesty, then so will I. “I run this way most nights. It’s one of the few places in the city where you can see the stars.”

He laughs at that. It’s a tiny thing and I find that I’m desperate to hear it again. Seeing Baz soft is like a drug. I need more. “You don’t need to come out here to see the stars, Snow,” he says.

“What do you—”

He turns to face me, eyes suddenly intense, his mouth set in a determined line. Like he’s about to do something and he’s terrified.

I feel his fingers against my skin before I realize what’s happening. He’s taken my wrist and is holding my forearm up between us.

“Here,” he says, moving a cool finger across my skin. His voice is barely a whisper, but I hear it. “Cassiopeia.”

I gasp and I think that the tips of his ears flush with colour.

“And here,” he says, moving up across my bicep. “Lyra.” I shiver under his touch. Tender and intense, soft and ravenous.

It’s too many feelings at once. More than I’ve felt…maybe even since Ebb died. It’s hitting me like a freight train barreling over my chest and I feel tears hot and sharp behind my eyes.

He lets my arm drop. “I’m sorry.”

I can’t look at him. It’s too damn much. “It’s not you.”

“Are you okay?”

 _No._ “Why are you being so nice to me?” There’s a tremble in my voice but I don’t care enough to try to smother it.

“I don’t want to fight anymore, Snow.” His words are as raw as the skin he traced with his fingers.

I swallow hard and finally find the courage to look up. Tonight feels like a leap year, like a wish, like purgatory. It’s a fluke and if I’m going to ask him, it needs to be tonight.

“What _do_ you want?”

**Baz**

Simon Snow is staring at me with tears in his eyes and I can’t move. I can’t think. For the first time in my life, I can’t find the words.

“I…”

He’s looking at me like I’m the only thing that exists in the world.

“I want…”

Fuck, I don’t know how to make eight years of confessions fit into syllables.

“I want…”

The number of times I’ve picked Snow apart for his stutters, terrorized every painful half word he staggers over—I couldn’t begin to count how many times I hurt him with my tongue.

And now, for the first time I’m at a loss, the heroic fuck doesn’t force me to stumble. He doesn’t make me use words at all.

He takes my face in his hands.

Both hands.

Warm against the chill in my cheeks.

Leans in.

And kisses me.

It’s timid at first. A kiss that gives me the chance to run away.

I’ve been running from this all my life.

I’m not going to run anymore.

Fuck. That.

I lean into him, my hands slipping under his shirt (even now, he’s still so warm), my mouth moving in a rush against his, our bodies so close I can feel his heartbeat start to race.

And I devour him.

I want to hold on to every moment of this. I want to freeze this slice of time for the rest of my life. The way his tongue moves inside my mouth, the way he breathes into me as my hands slip up into his hair. The panting (desperate) and the gasps (he wants me) and the taste (so fucking Simon). I need it all.

It lasts until I start to shiver. He pulls back and rests his forehead against mine. Our breath is a cloudy mist that mingles between us in the early morning chill. “Is this what you want?” he asks.

My words are still setting themselves on fire, sacrificing themselves to the supernova that is Simon Snow. At least this question only demands a one-word answer.

“Yes.”

For years. For now. Forever.


	4. Mixtapes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 90's nostalgia, stealth mode, a graveyard of intimacy, rewinding and replaying, rewinding and replaying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, filled with angst, regret, and a few answers. Hope y'all like it <3

**BEFORE**

**Baz (18 years old)**

There is something wrong with my cousin. I mean, on most days, this is a generally observable fact. Whether it’s his podcast feed (filled with questionable diatribes on the latest conspiracy theories), his obsession with 90s punk (“I liked Green Day _before_ it was cool, Baz”), or god forbid, his internet search history. Dev’s a disaster at his best.

But today, as he paces my flat, muttering under his breath and brandishing his cellphone like a serial killer, I know something’s especially off. So off, that it may be time to check in with his most persistent, red headed trigger.

I sigh, pick up my phone from the marble counter top, and shoot off a quick text.

_Baz (9:54 am): What have you done to Dev?_

The response is instantaneous. I fucking knew it.

**Niall (9:54 am): So he’ll talk to you, but not to me! Well fuck him.**

Not a promising start.

_Baz (9:56 am): He’s not talking to me, you idiot. He’s floundering like a beached whale. The display is ruining a perfectly fine Sunday morning. Niall, what did you do to him?_

**Niall (9:57 am): NOTHING**

**Niall (9:57 am): I tried to talk to him.**

_Baz (9:59 am): Well, that’s where you went wrong. Amateur mistake. I thought you knew him better._

**Niall (10:00 am): You’re terrible to talk to, you know that?**

_Baz (10:02 am): Genuinely not my intention. I’m just adding to the record of “things we know about Dev” that he doesn’t respond as well to words as actions._

**Niall (10:04 am): I already tried that! Or did you forget the fucking party? Cause I sure haven’t.**

I sigh. Things have been completely out of sync since the night I met Snow on the bridge. And while progress was made on the doomed-to-eternally-love-Simon-fucking-Snow front (the hickey just above my clavicle is enough evidence of that) (fuck, now all I can think about is the way his teeth feel on my skin), things between Niall and Dev did not.

I look up at my cousin, still pacing like a maniac around the flat. Not exactly romantic.

As best I can tell, Dev is imploding in slow motion (like Venice. Slowly sinking into the sea) and Niall is trying to pretend nothing happened.

_Baz (10:06 am): Well, I think you may have broken him._

**Niall (10:07 am): Fuck off Baz, if you hadn't gone all exhibitionist, I never would’ve done this. I would’ve stayed and sulked and everything would be normal.**

_Baz (10:08 am): I know you’re upset, Niall, but I think you may be projecting blame._

**Niall (10:09 am): You made me brave**

_Baz (10:10 am): Well, I’m a terrible role model with plot armour. You should know better than to listen to me._

**Niall (10:11 am): I hate you sometimes, you know that?**

_Baz (10:12 am): You may have mentioned it._

**Naill (10:13 am): Just let me know if he’s okay, yeah?**

I roll my eyes. I hate sentiment and it is getting all over my text messages.

_Baz (10:14 am): Whatever you say, Romeo._

Nothing may come of the random perfection that was my night on the bridge with Snow, but at least I won’t die trying to imagine how he tastes. I will hold on to that memory until death or dementia pries it from my cold undead hands. My phone buzzes again, and I look down, expecting more irritable words from Niall.

**Snow (10:16 am): heeeeeeeeeey u**

Fuck, that's not Niall. 

**Snow (10:35 am): fuck fuck i woke you up didnt i?**

He didn’t, but I don’t know how to tell him that I’ve been up most of the night with the memory of his tongue in my mouth.

_Baz (10:37 am): Not relevant. What do you want?_

**Snow (10:37 am): wanna hang out today?**

_Baz (10:39 am): I could be convinced. What do you have in mind?_

**Snow (10:40 am): coffee and maybe bookstore**

**Snow (10:40 am): u know**

**Snow (10:41 am): cuase u like books**

_Baz (10:43 am): Well spotted, Snow._

**Snow (10:43 am): do u wanna??????????**

_Baz (10:45 am): One question mark will suffice._

**Snow (10: 45am): ?????????????????????**

_Baz (10:46 am): Crowley. Yes, fine._

**Snow (10:46 am): :D**

**Snow (10:47 am): right. um…**

**Snow (10:47 am): kk**

**Snow (10:48 am): pick u up at 2**

**Snow (1:55 pm): hey baz?**

_Baz (1:56 pm): What is it now, Snow?_

**Snow (1:56 pm): where do u live?**

_Baz (1:57pm): You’re a walking disaster._

Snow pulls up in front of my building twenty minutes late in a tiny Volkswagen that looks like its been driven over a cliff. The driver-side window is all the way down and Snow's freckled arm is dangling out the side. His t-shirt is loose and stretched and his hair is everywhere, mussed by the downed windows and a fall breeze.

He’s sunshine melted down into man shape.

I walk round the car, attempt to slip into the passenger side, and am immediately assaulted by a barrage of garbage.

“Snow,” I say, as my feet crunch onto an empty Big Mac container. “There’s rubbish everywhere.”

Simon has the decency to blush a little. “You lived with me for seven years. You should've expected it.”

My lip curls and I catch Simon staring at my mouth.

_Crowley._

Last night feels like a fever dream. Eventually, when he was done kissing me (Simon Snow kissed me last night), I called an Uber. He held my hand until I was settled in the back seat.

I’d tried to drag him into the car, to force him to let me drop him at his place, but he just shook his head. “Could use the walk,” he’d said and I’d let him go, convinced that this was a single moment, an aftershock of too much liquor, or a really vivid dream. There was no way my luck could stretch into the daylight.

And yet here we are. Garbage and all.

“Just throw it in the back.”

“I will not.” The soda cups and crisp bags and the crumbs actually ground me a little. Prove that this is more than a fantasy; its real.

“Then stop being a posh arsehole.” Those were the kind of words that used to start a row. Today, though, there’s no bite to them.

“Is that how you talk to all of the boys you bring into this monstrosity of a—”

“Ba-az,” he practically whines. “I’ve got one rule if you want this.” He gesture at himself and waggles his eyebrows in what looks like Snow’s approximation of sexy.

He’s so adorable it hurts.

“I have no idea what you’re—” but he doesn’t let me finish.

“Don’t.” He leans across the middle console and presses a kiss to my clavicle. I nearly jump out of my skin.

“Insult.” He kisses the side of my neck. Is this the life I get to live now?

“My car.” He nips at my earlobe and the I practically squawk. I am going to get him back for that, if it’s the last thing I do.

I’m going to get Snow back for nibbling on my ear…I’m living a charmed life.

“Your car has an excessive amount of rubbish littering every available surface. As well as a tape deck,” I grumble, trying to regain my composure. “I don’t even remember the last time I’ve seen a cassette tape. It's practically and antique Snow.”

"At least I have a car.”

“With a tape deck.”

“Yes! With a tape deck.” Snow’s blush is ferocious. “I don’t even have any cassettes which means it’s useless anyway. So unless you’ve got anything nice to say about my car, please fuck off.”

“No cassette tapes, did you say?”

And that’s how it started.

“What the devil is all of this?” Dev asks as I sat in the middle of my flat, slicing into the cardboard box that arrived with the post.

“Portable cassette recorder,” I reply absently.

“What is it, 1995?”

“Some of us have refined tastes, Devon,” I mutter, turning the recorder over and tossing the instructions to Dev. “Some of us value nostalgia.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with your idiot chosen one and his ancient fucking car?” Dev says, leveling me with a look that isn’t exactly PG.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I saw his texts on your phone. Quit holding out on me, Baz. We’re supposed to be friends.”

“I don’t remember ever agreeing to that.”

“Christ you’re an arsehole. No idea what Snow sees in you.”

“I could say the same for Niall,” I shoot back, and Dev almost chokes.

“I…we…it’s complicated you know? I just…you know what? Fuck off Baz. We’re talking about you. And how you’re making Snow a fucking mix tape.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Romantic arsehole,” Dev says, but he’s grinning. “It’d be cute if you weren’t so fucking cagey about it.”

“Shut up and pass me the aux chord.”

The technical components are not so difficult. All it takes is portable recorder, a cheap microphone, impeccable taste in music, and a quality Spotify library.

Choosing the songs, though. I spend hours agonizing over the options. I fall asleep listening to possible tracks for my next tape. As I walk in between classes, I test out the lineup and order of the songs so that his emotions will ebb and flow with the mood of the music.

And (eventually, one night, after a few glasses of wine) I start to leave Snow messages in between tracks. It’s an uncharacteristic show of affection, but once I start, I can’t stop.

It’s stupid things. Words that I’ve read and loved (“But Snow, how can I see the light of a match while burning in the arms of the sun?”). The occasional compliment (“Your forearms are a slice of heaven and make me want to do terrible things to you”) (he’d rolled up his sleeves almost every day since that one). Secrets (I was sure I’d die before I finished at Watford, Snow. I didn’t plan for a future. And now that it’s here, I’m terrified).

I keep brushing up against the depths of my feelings. But I desperately want him to know. And so I creep closer and closer, testing the waters, in those quiet spaces in between songs. While the recorder listens and the thin ribbon the tape remembers.

“You’re gravity. I’ve never wanted anyone but you. You’re everything. You’re mine.”

I said that on the last one, and I was convinced that he’d be gone: not in class, no replies to messages, no more nights at mine. All gone. But no.

Snow keeps coming back.

I think he listens to those parts over and over. I can’t be sure, but every time I get into his filthy car, the music always starts up on the song right after one of my mini monologues. The swell of emotion gets me every time and I spend the first few minutes in his hideous car trying to compose myself.

We never talk about it. Vulnerable is not a position I’ve ever felt comfortable, and I think Simon knows. There never been a day where I’ve relished that kind of exposure. But with Simon…well, I find that I want to. Even if it’s hidden. Buried in the cheap stretchy film of an old cassette tape. I want him to know (maybe that’s how I’ll tell him) (that I’ve loved him so much, for so long, that I thought I’d die from it) (that I still do) (I love you Simon) (I love you) (I love you).

**AFTER**

**Simon (25 years old)**

LED lights hang from the rooftops and the lampposts and everything looks a proper shade of festive. Bing Cosby is crooning at me from one of the shops. Even though we’re still eight six weeks out from Christmas, I can’t help it; I smile.

I never cared for Christmas when I was a kid. The sting of my distinct lack of family was always extra nasty in the weeks before the holiday. I’m still mostly alone on the actual morning, but the lead up hurts a lot less.

Penny charges ahead beside me, an unmanageable number of bags strung up her arms. She was still pretty mad when I called—almost didn’t let me come out with her. But then I promised to help her carry some of the shopping and she came round. Which is a good thing, really, cause I’ve been thinking a lot, and I need some information.

I wait until there’s a break in her singular drive to get every person on her list bought for, and then I buy my way to her heart with a large hot chocolate (extra whip).

“Soooooo,” I say, sinking into one of the spindly wooden chairs outside the coffee shop.

Penny removes the plastic lid and licks at a colossal amount of whip cream. “So?”

“I was hoping maybe…that you could…I dunno…” Now that the moment’s finally here, I’m almost scared to ask.

“Spit it out,” Penny says. She has a whip cream moustache. I’m not going to tell her.

“So you know that thing you said Baz did?” I say it all in a rush and the words crash together on their way out of my mouth.

“Yes,” she says, narrowing her eyes. Penny is quite scary when she wants to be. But there’s a rosy colour in her cheeks from the December evening and she looks like a character from one of the old Christmas specials. I could pinch her cheeks. She’d punch me, but it'd be worth it.

“I kinda wanted to know how it works. And like…” I rub the back of my neck. She’s gonna freak. “Where he got it done?”

“Excuse me.”

Oh boy. I know that tone. It’s the beginning of a volcano. And it ends in word lava that burns me for days afterwards.

“Simon. Why? Why would you even think about that.”

“That’s the problem. I can’t stop thinking about it!”

“You don’t just go and give yourself brain damage—"

That’s not what I want, but I’m confused. “Wait, I thought you just said it was a spell—”

“Same thing! You don’t just go and lobotomize the love of your life—”

“Who said he was the love of my life?!”

“YOU DID!”

I’m practically frothing at the mouth. “Pen, I’m not gonna erase him. I just wanna…” I bite my lip. Agitation is pulsing through me. Has been for the last two weeks. “I’m just gonna take a look.”

Penny huffs at me. “When do you ever just ‘take a look?’ Simon, you’re a walking disaster. You wrecking ball through everything and figure things out after.”

“Do not,” I say, pouting a little.

“Don’t fight me on this. I know you. And this is a bad idea.”

I stare down at my black coffee, deflating a little. “Look, either you tell me or I figure it out on my own. I need to go there. I can’t get it out of my head. I want…” Honestly, I don’t know what I want. I just know I need to go. To see. To try and retrace Baz’s steps.

Penny sighs and it send little fleck of whip cream flying. “Fine. But I want it on the record—”

“I hate when you go on the record. That’s my thing—”

“—that I said this was a terrible idea.”

“You always say that.”

“I’m always right.” She reaches across the table and places her hand on top of mine. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t.”

I know it’s probably a lie and so does she. She texts me the details anyway. Pen’s blunt and relentless, but she’s a better friend than I deserve. I will never ever let her go.

**_Penny (6:45 pm): Lacuna Inc. Google the rest yourself._ **

**_Penny (6:47 pm): This is a terrible idea. On the record._ **

…

The rain stings the chalky pavement and makes the cement smell fresh, as if the glistening roads are an urban soil ready to give life to something concrete. 

It’s not pouring, really, but the air feels full, and the moisture is sending my curls into a frenzy.

I drove around the block like twenty times before I finally parked (I’m not the best driver) (Baz was, though. A great driver I mean) (he used to play with the hair along the back of my neck when I’d drive) (I miss the way his fingers used to feel).

I’m leaning out the window just…staring. The building looks so normal. It’s way less fancy than I was expecting, an old square industrial thing, with big front windows.

I’m dressed in black trackies and a black hoodie and I’ve got a black beanie that I’m trying to mash my hair into. Black is discrete at night. It’s what all the buglers wear on TV. Although I don’t think I’m a burglar necessarily.

I’m a visitor.

Yeah.

That’s it.

I take a deep breath and try to quell the nerves that are squirming like snakes in my guts. There’s a fire escape running up the fading brick. All I need to do is climb up and slip through a second-story window. I can do this.

I slam my car door and flinch as the sound echoes down the empty street.

Fuck.

Stealth mode. Gotta be stealthy. It’s a shame, really, that my only reference point for moving discretely is Assassins Creed.

I sprint across the street, trying to keep my body low to the ground. There’s a dumpster next to the building and if I can just jump on top of it…

A running leap. Yeah, that’s it. I pick up speed and run at the bin, crashing into the side. I’ve got my elbows up on top of the thing, but my legs are dangling, scrambling for purchase. Fuck, my pants are so tight around my thighs. This shit seemed a lot easier at seventeen.

The smell of rotting food trickles up my nostrils asI roll onto the plastic cover and start clambering up the fire escape.

The rungs are damp and slippery and this is all very high up…

For the first time in my life, I realize that I left my identity as chosen one behind a long time ago. No more swords, no more dark creatures, and no more reason to fight. I’m a social worker now. And going to the gym is not the same as being ready to fight a dragon. These days, my muscles are more for show.

It's slow going (I don't wanna slip on the metal rungs) but eventually, I reach a window on the second floor. I hold my breath as I lean in and check if it’s open. If it’s locked, I’m not sure what I’m going to do…

The old single pane glass groans, but slides open slowly (thank Cersei)—

—and then jams halfway up.

Fuck.

I’m standing with my hand against a brick wall and my feet on an inch of round metal two stories in the air. Fuck. The gap in the window is not that big. And I’m starting to regret this whole thing. Penny was right. I’m being stupid and dredging up old wounds that should've stay buried.

I could just go home. Call it a night. Try to forget.

Or…

_I can probably fit._

It’s dark anyway. If anyone looks up, they’ll probably never see me. I’m in black, after all. Stealth mode.

_Fuck it all._

I dive at the window face first...and promptly get stuck. _Fuck me._ Maybe if I try to wiggle my shoulders… There’s something pointy digging into my back. I think it’s a handle but I can’t be sure cause I’m trapped in the square jaws of this fucking window and I can’t move.

Just gotta squeeze in, let the air out of my chest, maybe that will give me enough space…

I plunge forward a few inches, and now I know that my ass is up in the air, my legs flailing behind it, and that if anyone looks up they’ll have quite a view…

I’m in black. It’s fine.

Gravity is doing its work and I can feel the sides of the window digging into my ribs as I start to slip forward inch by inch, until something gives way and…

I’m in!

_Oh shit._

I crash headlong into a dark room and feel my skull connect with something hard. The crack and flash of pain hit me all at once. I see the outline a huge square shelf as it starts to wobble and have just enough time to throw up my arms as the huge things come tumbling down.

So much for subtle.

_Flashlight. I need a flashlight._

I paw at my pockets and extract my iPhone. A flashlight. I need to see.

There’s a tremor in my hands as I try to slide the home menu up and press the little flashlight icon. 

Bright white light flares to life.

There is a cheap metal shelf on top of me and what must’ve been its contents scattered across the floor. I see a dog’s collar and a bowl. Customized potatoes heads. A ceramic cup is laying pieces, with the face of a woman with bright red hair smiling up at me. Necklaces, picture frames, lamps, and boxes, and books.

Nothing looks especially expensive or fancy. But each item looks…worn. Special. Like it was cherished.

A graveyard of intimacy.

What the fuck is this place?

“These look like keepsakes,” I mutter to no one, picking up a floral blanket that smells like cat pee. “Why would they need this shit?”

Fuck, I wish Penny was here. She could answer all of these questions.

I move to right the shelf, but think better of it. Some of the shit scattered across the floor is broken. Better they think it just…fell over (that’s plausible, right?) (fuck, I’m terrible at stealth mode).

Considering all the noise I made coming in, I should probably hurry up. Time to check out the rest of the place. I accidentally kick what looks like a sketch pad and send it skidding across the floor (the blue light from my phone illuminates a girl with a skeleton body) (fucking weirdos).

The hallways are narrow and, for a minute, I feel like I'm navigating a doll house. I poke my head into the next room and see dozens of filing cabinets.

“I wonder…” I let the question fall half-finished into the silence. These could be records. If they are, this place has done the procedure thousands and thousands of times.

I yank at the first drawer I see. It slides open.

“Merlin and Morgana.” There are hundreds of files with name after name emblazoned on fading folders. I think I’m in the ‘S’s.

“Fuck, I need to find the Ps…or would he be in the Gs?” (Grimm-Pitch starts with G right?)

I throw drawer after drawer open, pushing through files, all restraint forgotten. I’m not thinking. This room, with these old metal drawers and cheap folders could have answers. Could be exactly what I’m looking for. I need this. I need to know why.

“Granger, Green, Greenwhich…” My hands suddenly stop. Grimm-Pitch. There’s only one person with that ridiculous name.

I handle the file like a live grenade with a pulled pin. “I’m scared, Baz.” My hands are trembling.

My iPhone flashlight feels like an electric torch as I train it down on the old papers. First page, general demographics. Name, Basilton Grimm-Pitch, Age, 19, Hair colour, black, Eye colour, grey, height, 6’1 (lanky fucker).

Second page, liability waivers. The signature is gentle loops and perfect lines. His handwriting is giving me goosebumps. There are memories in everything.

Third page, payment information.

This isn’t what I want. I want a reason. I want…

That’s when I find it. There’s a cassette tape at the bottom of the folder.

All of the energy that had been lighting me up like a fucking Christmas tree drains out of my body. Who uses cassette tapes anymore? What the actual fuck?

_Why did it have to be a cassette tape?_

I kept them all. Every last one that he made me.There was only one non-negotiable detail that I had when buying a new car two years ago: it had to have a tape deck. (Penny had told me it was stupid. Told me I should grow up and figure out how Bluetooth works) (but she doesn’t get it) (The tapes are the only way I get to hear his voice.) (They have pieces of Baz when he cared about me. When he whispered sweet kindnesses and left them behind where I could find them. On the grainy film of old mixtapes).

Someone has punched a hole in my chest and I feel the tears thundering as they approach. My plans for the night narrow to a single point: I need to listen to this tape. Which means that I need to get to my car. Right now. Nothing else matters.

Fuck stealth mode. I stomp down the stairs and walk out the front door.

The headlights light up the street as I turn the car over and start to drive away. My breaths are rushing in and out of my chest—I feel like I’ve run a marathon and I can’t get enough air.

I need to drive. I need to be driving when I do this.

There’s a soft thunk as I slip the tape into my tape deck.

One last mixtape.

Streetlights cast shadows across the restless streets. There’s a gentle hum (unique to cassettes. It’s why I love them) and then a female voice I don’t recognize blares through my speakers.

“Please state your name and who you are here to erase.”

The silence feels like a death sentence. 

“My name is Basilton Grimm-Pitch and I’m here to erase Simon Snow.” It’s him. His voice. It sends my heart into staccato.

“If you would like to provide a reason, feel free to do so now.” I suddenly hate her more than I’ve ever hated anyone.

“Why would I erase Simon?” His voice is tight and I can practically see the furrow between his eyebrows. I want to smooth it over with my thumb.

_He called me Simon._

A deep breath. A scratch on the tape.

“Well, he’s a mess. He’s more mess than person. He eats with his mouth open."

_Hey!_

“No.” he pauses. “Scratch that. He does everything with his mouth open.”

_Okay, c’mon._

“He crashes into everything and he doesn’t think about it. He’s the bravest person I know and I used to love that about him.”

_Used to…_

“But it’s not even any of that. It really isn’t. All of those shitty things. They make Simon…Simon.”

 _Can you hear a smile?_ _I think I can._

There’s a pause. Static. I can hear him breathing and I’m matching him without even thinking. The manic gasps that were wracking my chest start to settle.

He used to do this for me, before I ruined it all. He would calm me down. Match me breath for breath when I would panic. When I would overflow.

“It’s because I want him anyway. Because I don’t think there’s a thing that he could do to me that I wouldn’t take. I would cross every line for him.”

_I don’t understand._

“And it’ll never be enough. I will never be enough. That’s why. I have to do this. Because I…” his voice cracks.

_It’s okay Baz._

“I’ve loved him so much, for so long, that I thought I’d die from it.”

_He loves me._

“I still do.”

_He loves me._

“I love you, Simon. I love you. I love you.” These words have traveled years and the emotion is still thick. Baz never sounds like this. “Sorry,” he’s saying, breaking the spell, a hint of embarrassment in his voice. “I think I needed to say that. Out loud.”

_He loves me._

“I'm erasing Simon Snow because he needs more than this. More than me.”

_No, I don’t._

“And I will never let him go.”

_Why did you?_

“Because I’m selfish. I can’t make him better. I can’t make him happy. I’m not enough.”

_No._

“Simon’s gravity. I’ve never wanted anyone but him. He’s everything. He’s just not meant to be mine.”

I’ve heard those words before. Memorized them. Listened to them over and over again, rewinding and replaying, rewinding and replaying, wearing the tape thin.

“So, I need someone to force me let him go. Turn that stupid antique off and get this over with.”

I can’t see the road. Tears started and they just keep coming. My face is cracking into a thousand pieces and I don’t think it’s gonna go back together.

I thought I wanted to know. I thought I wanted to understand. I thought I could handle this. That I could face it. But I can’t.

I can’t (I was stupid)

I can’t (so stupid)

I just can't.

…

“Hello.” The voice that emerges from my chest is all gravel and despair.

The receptionist looks up at me from behind the desk. Blonde hair falls just past her chin. She’s got big blue eyes and a voice that could put me to sleep. “Welcome to Lacuna. What can I do for you?”

“I’d uh…I’d like to make an appointment. Can you, um, you know. Can you help…”

A tiny hand reaches out and squeezes mine. “Of course. I’m Mary. Are you looking for memory alterations?” There’s warmth and something close to pity in her eyes. At this point, I don’t find I care.

I try to nod. “I need to erase someone.”

I take a deep breath.

“I’d like to erase Baz Pitch.”


	5. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A proper goodbye, simonsnow-itus, a galaxy made flesh, and Gene Kelly's arse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise you a happy ending. Just not today. 
> 
> Thank you aracanine for beta reading this and indulging my insecurities <3
> 
> Also, this gets a teensy bit NSFW (very brief) but if you want to dodge that moment, it starts at "The glass walls of the shower..." and ends at "It's not a memory spell..."

**AFTER**

**Simon (25 years old)**

_Obviously, the limits of confidentiality make detailed discussions impossible. Suffice it to say that Mr. Pitch was not happy and wanted to move on._

We’re driving down the highway at night, the stars blinking up above us. Wind crashing all around, the windows all the way down, the music on blast.

A cool hand is squeezing my knee. “Slow down, love.”

I don’t. I don’t slow down.

_The first thing you’ll need to do is return to your home and bring us everything that could remind you of Mr. Pitch. It will create a map for the erasure._

The glass walls of the shower are fogging up, the whole room is steam and I can’t breathe but who the fuck cares about that when I can feel his body behind me, his hands all over me.

“I’m…I…”

The look on his face is sinful as he leans in and presses his lips against my ear. “I want you to come for me.”

“Fuuuuck.”

He’s stroking me, faster, fuck faster, and oh god it’s so much I can’t think. And something hot is pooling in my stomach and

“Baz I’m going to—” 

_It’s not a memory spell, Mr. Snow, but a spell rooted in the love one person has for another. Without love, we could not conduct the erasure._

We’re standing at opposite ends of my kitchen. No Penny in her room, no television playing in the background. Just him and me. Waging a war.

“I don’t need anything!” Shame turns to rage and sets this delicate little world we’ve tried to build on fucking fire.

“Snow, you need help.” Those beautiful fingers are in his hair and his mouth is a thin line. I’ve never seen Baz lose composure like this. Even back at Watford, even when he would use his fists, the arsehole was always in control. His blows were always measured. His plots calculated. His words a perfect fucking dictation. Right now, his hands are balled into firsts at his side. And they’re shaking.

I’m watching Baz come undone.

It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.

“Well, you can’t fix me.”

“I don’t want to fix you.”

“Don’t you? Don’t you want the old me? The one who could go off? Level the world of mages with one bad day?”

It’s like I’ve slapped him. His eyes are glassy, and I know that it hurt.

I don’t care.

“What is wrong with you?” he whispers.

Wrong question. “Everything!”

_Alert your friends and family. It will help you avoid any unnecessary confusion and pain. Delete messages and any social media connections. Make sure that you cannot find him anywhere._

The bastard dragged me out of the house so he could show off. The way Baz glides around on the ice, like he’s some hero with super speed and not just a bloke with blades strapped to his feet—well, the ulterior motive is obvious, isn’t it?

“Come on chosen one. The ice isn’t going to hurt you.”

“Easy for you to say,” I growl as I inch out. “Prancing around like you’re in a fucking Christmas movie.” I glide onto the ice. “Good at fucking everything you do.” My legs wobble like a baby deer. “I hate it.”

Baz slides up alongside me and slips his hand into mine. “You love it.”

I want to argue, but he’s pulling me along, skating fucking backwards. “Show off.”

“I think you mean to say, wow, what a wonderful, exceedingly talented boyfriend I have.” He kisses me on my cheek, rubbed red by the cold.

“Hmm,” I grumble, too focused on trying to stay upright to trade banter with Baz.

“Thought so.”

_If you contact us, you will not be provided any information. I want to be very clear, Mr. Snow. It will be gone. Everything. And there is no getting it back._

“Snow, look at me.”

I don’t want to. My body is trying to run. But his fingers are squeezing me so tight and I’ve never been able to look away. Not from Baz.

He’s up on one elbow, long dark hair falling in waves, worry lines etched into his perfect fucking face. Anyone who’s ever looked into Baz’s eyes knows that there’s fire inside of him (he’s the perfect contradiction) (vampire and inferno) (fire and ice), and I can feel the heat from here.

“What are you scared of?”

Merlin, how do I even begin to answer that?

Seconds stretch as he holds me in place, and I try to let the words break through the lump in my throat.

“That…” Fuck. Breathe. In and hold and out. “That by the morning, you’ll be gone. The perfect end to this piece of shit story.”

_My memories. These are my memories. No. Wait. Stop. Please, don’t take this from me. I was wrong. I wanna call it off. Can you hear me I don’t want this anymore I wanna call it off!_

I always thought Baz would live in some posh town house, with clean lines and a maid who came every week. But (like with so many things about Baz) I was wrong. So fucking wrong.

His building is old fashioned brick and the bugger has garden boxes on his balcony in the summertime. There’s a hanging pot of petunias, sending a wave of purple spilling into view. I can see him, sitting on a wooden lawn chair, staring out into space.

“I came here, that day,” I whisper. “After I went off. After I said those terrible things.”

“I never knew that.” He’s still not looking down at me. But I hear him answer.

“I meant to come up. To tell you I was sorry. I woulda done anything, Baz. I was gonna beg.”

I hear a long sigh in my head. “You didn’t.”

The breeze picks up and rustles his hair. The long line of his jaw is tight—I can feel his teeth grinding from here. “No. I stood out here. And I watched you. I’d never seen you cry, Baz. Not before that day.”

I watch the memory play out in front of me. Watch as his tense shoulders collapse and Baz’s folds in half, holding his face in his hands. He’s shaking as he cries. Quiet, violent little shakes.

“You were so sad,” I mutter. I’m watching the boy I love fall apart. For the second time. Is it pathetic that I can’t look away? “I did that. I saw…I couldn’t…I was toxic Baz. I was in a shit place and I was breaking everything I touched.”

I take a deep breath and try to find the words I should’ve used all those years ago. “I miss you Baz. So fucking much. I set it all on fire and fuck, I didn’t want you to have to burn with me. I thought you’d be better off.”

I pause, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “So I left. I just…left you sitting there. Crying.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know. That much hasn’t changed. I went and erased you right back.”

The boy on the balcony looks up. “So, this is it?”

I shrug. I’m honestly not sure what this is.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said what I did. I shouldn’t’ve walked away.”

Baz is staring at me. Looking down at me. His eyes are still red around the edges. I want to touch him. To hold him. To have him. I’ve made so many mistakes. And I’m about to forget all of them.

“Stay this time,” Baz says, but even as the words drift down to me, I realize it’s too late. The details of the moment are starting to fade. The background isn’t defined anymore. The wind is gone. All that’s left of the building are smudges of red and brown and a streak of purple.

“I can’t.” I’m crying. Tears trace hot lines down my cheeks. I don’t fucking care. “The memory’s dying.”

“Make up a goodbye at least,” he says. “Pretend we had one.”

Everything around Baz is a puddle, like the memory is a water colour painting, bleeding off the page. But I hold on to his face. I stare and focus on everything I love about him, as I say the only thing I can think of. The only thing that matters right now. The thing I should’ve said when I had the chance. “I love you.”

I shoot up in bed, thrashing in my sheets, kicking and flailing, my hands tearing at my hair.

“What the…” Something feels wrong. Like someone took my head and turned it upside down and let all of the contents spill out over the floor. As I try to scoop up my thoughts and push them back inside, I feel something slipping. Water between the palms of my hands.

Something important.

I scramble, trying to hold on to the dream. Trying to take a picture in my head. Just let me have this. Let me keep it…

Tears are streaming down my cheeks.

I can’t remember why.

**BEFORE**

**Baz (18 years old)**

I think I have a condition. Simonsnow-pathy or chosenone-itus. It’s definitely chronic. A lifelong illness I’ll be forced to carry for the rest of my days. Symptoms include: things that would normally disgust me in literally any other human on the planet are rendered hopelessly endearing; inability to look at him and not salivate; heart palpitations.

It’s been two weeks. We’ve snogged in his car. As we stood on the grass, about to part ways for the night, he brushed a strand of hair off my face.

That’s all that’s happened. Nothing serious. Nothing below-the-belt. No professions of undying love. I’m not even sure if we’re boyfriends.

And yet. I’m so sick with him. So high on him. Whatever this condition is, Crowley, I’ve got it bad.

Simon Snow will be the death of me.

Case in point: Simon at the theatre tonight.

The Cinema 8 plays classics on Wednesdays and Snow had never seen Singing in the Rain (or Gene Kelly’s arse in slacks) (the poor uncultured lump).

The enthusiasm with which Snow consumes cinema popcorn is unparalleled by anything else I’ve ever seen.

First, he demanded extra butter. Layered. By the time the attendant was finished with the bag, it was a glistening mess of oil and slimy calories.

He also inhales more than he eats. At first, I wasn’t sure that he chewed, and spent the first twenty minutes of the film staring at his mouth, trying to figure out if his cheeks were moving, looking for some hint that his teeth were involved in this display.

He caught me staring almost immediately and the bastard fucking winked at me. Snow is getting brazen in his flirting. I’ll have to do something about this…

Normally, this disgusting display would turn my stomach. Put anyone else next to me mashing handfulls of food into their face and I will abort.

Not so with Simon fucking Snow.

When he dropped a kernel (just a single piece of popcorn), he looked down at it like it was a Greek tragedy. Like any food lost was akin to a fallen solider and should be mourned as such. The affection that flushed my system just then was overwhelming.

There’s only one explanation: I’m sick. Snowscone-itus.

And the looks. The way his face would twist up when he smiled, the sound of his laugh as it rolled through him. Simon Snow laughs with his whole body. It is a production. Back muscles, shoulders, knee slapping, all engaged. It’s too much (on anyone else, it would be unbearable) and I love it.

As the final number clues up and the credits start to roll, he finally turns to look at me. The lighting is still dim and casts a soft wash across his face. I can’t breathe.

“Baz. That was fucking brill.”

“Really?” My voice almost squeaks. The moment is so soft, I almost don’t recognize us.

He grabs my hands with both of his and squeezes. “Really.”

I swallow, fighting to scrape together some composure. “Of course it was. I suggested it.”

I’m not sure if it’s the grin that lifts one side of his mouth, all snark and glee. Or if it’s the disgusting details I’ve been cataloguing all night. Or if it’s just self-destructive bravery, but before I can overthink it, I hear myself ask, “Want to come back to mine?”

The half grin matures into a full toothy monstrosity—unrestrained and so unapologetically Snow that it takes my breath away.

“Yeah. That’d be…I’d like…” He closes his eyes and takes a breath. He does this sometimes, I’ve noticed, when he’s trying to find his thoughts. “Yeah.”

The grey light casts shadows, emphasizing the dark circles and the tired lines. I’ve watched Snow doze off in the library. Seen him struggle to hold on to the threads of his thoughts. Watched his eyes stare straight through me.

Whatever’s changed, whatever is bothering him, is taking a toll on the explosive golden boy I used to know.

Right now, though, he doesn’t look dazed or tired or distracted. Right now he looks…hungry. And I want to indulge him.

“Yeah,” he says again, leaning in and whispering the next words into my ear. “Let’s do that.”

I’m sick. I’m dying of a Snow-oma, riddled with Simon-schlorosis.

“Can I drive?” The bastard knows he makes me weak.

I’m tempted to say yes. A part of me wants to. Crowley. I’m losing all of my good sense and self-preservation instincts.

“Not a chance.”

“Hmm,” he says, biting his lip and looking up at me through those stubby lashes. “You sure? I can be very distracting when my hands aren’t occupied.”

I’m so royally fucked.

…

The moment I turn over the deadlock and push open the front door, Simon’s on me. I feel his fingers buried in my shirt collar as he pushes me up against the wall next to the door. Hard. I fumble with the light switch digging into my spine.

I’ve fantasized about what this moment would be. Obsessed over every detail in almost every way. My imagination has done some despicable things to Simon Snow.

Snow nips on my neck and I groan, suddenly pulled right back into how hot his body feels pressed against mine. There's nothing nervous or sweet about it.

I didn’t think that I would ever actually get here, to this moment, and when real life Snow grinds into my leg, I can’t help it. I whimper into his mouth.

_Aleister fucking Crowley._

I’ve never felt like I was overheating before. But now…now I just need this fucking disaster on my bed.

Now.

I don’t think about it. I wrap one arm under Snow’s legs and I pick him up and dump him on my duvet.

He yips, and then looks down at me with that smile that sets my heart on fire. “Fucking vampire strength.”

“You like it.”

Snow’s eyes narrow and I think he’s going to eat me alive.

There are no sounds in the room. Everything is subdued. Silent. Not even the street noise is humming in the background—the windows are closed.

And so I can hear everything.

My sheets crumpling like tissue paper.

A sharp intake of breath.

Snow reaches up and strokes the side of my jaw and I can hear myself gasp. It’s a quiet thing, almost a whimper and I should be embarrassed by how much I want I want I want.

It’s not enough. I need more.

I reach up and slip my hands under his shirt. “Off,” I whisper into his mouth.

I feel as his lips curve into a shy smile. “What’s so funny, Snow?” I’m panting. I find I don’t care.

“Your hands. They’re calloused.”

What a fucking numpty. I let my fingertips trace circles into his back and the bastard groans. I’m mad with him.

“Violin.” I start to kiss his throat.

“I used to imagine your hands like this,” he mumbles, and I feel him swallow as my lips trail over his Adam’s apple.

I start to tug his shirt up and over his shoulders. “You thought about what my hands would feel like?”

Snow pulls back for a second and I groan in protest. I need him close, I need I need I need. But then I open my eyes and I see Snow desperately trying to free himself from his t-shirt. I didn’t see this much of Simon’s skin in the eight years we roomed together. I think I’m going to combust.

“Now you.”

I’m so dazzled by the way the moonlight is reflecting off Simon’s chest, I can barely think. Simon wants me to take my clothes off. 

I nearly tear my black polo in half as I rip it over my head, tossing it onto the floor.

“But Baz, it’ll wrinkle—”

I lean up and pull him back down, mouth first, and let my hands run over his chest. He leans in to me, almost like he can’t help it. Like he needs to touch me as much as I need to touch him.

“Baz,” he whispers. His forearms are propped on either side of my face, and he’s looking down at me, his lips grazing mine as he speaks. “Um. I want…but I’m…I’ve never…I’m not sure that…”

“Snow.” I reach up and let my hand settle on the side of his face. “No rush. We’ve got time. And I…well, I’ve never either.”

I would give up a piece of my soul every time, just to make Simon smile like he is right now. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” _I’ve waited years for you, Simon Snow. I can wait a little bit longer._ “Tonight, maybe just kissing.”

“Yeah. Yeah okay,” he says, visibly calmer. 

I take a good long look at the shirtless boy hovering above me.

Snow’s whole body is covered in moles and freckles. The night sky made flesh. I let my hands trail up and down his exposed skin. I can feel Simon’s teeth on my clavicle. “Snow,” I whisper, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. “You’re a fucking galaxy.”

Simon lifts his head from the crook of my neck and looks at me. “I’m a wha—”

I flip him over (too fast to be normal and too strong to be human, but I don’t care) and Simon’s eyes snap wide open.

“A galaxy,” I say, letting him see exactly how much I want him. “And I’m going to map it.”

The corner of his mouth turns up (that particular grin will be the death of me). “What do you mean—oh,” he says, as I start to kiss him, letting my lips move from one star to the next. I won’t stop until I’ve kissed every single one.

For now, kissing is enough. With Simon, anything is always enough.

…

When I wake up, my alarm clock reads 2:36 am and Simon’s eyes are still open. Staring at the roof.

I roll onto my side and look straight at him. “You’re going to give yourself a headache,” I mumble.

Simon blinks a few times, as if I brought him back from somewhere else.

_Where does he go?_

“Baz,” he says, and it’s half a question, half not. “We’re…nothing’s changed really. But like, everything’s changed. And…I…I don’t…”

_Use your words, Snow._

I almost say it. But then I remember that I don’t need to take him apart to get his attention (not anymore). “Slow down, Snow,” I say instead.

He breathes, in once, holds it, then lets it out.

“Well,” he says. “You’re still a nitpicking elitist.”

Crowley. Not where I thought this was going. “And you’re still a bumbling buffoon.”

“But. Well, we’re gonna do that together yeah?”

“Do what together, Snow?”

“Well, you...I...us?”

Oh. “Are you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

Snow shrugs.

“A shrug is not a sentence, Snow.”

“Maybe I am. Would that be so bad?”

Jutted chin. Always fighting. But this time, he’s fighting for me, and what a difference that makes.

“No,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. “I think that would be perfectly acceptable.”

“Really? So happy boyfriends then?”

“I don’t kiss just anyone, Snow.”

He scoffs at that. “Not what it looked like that first night at the house party.”

Something flashes across his face. Jealousy. Hot as oil in a pan.

I sigh. “Did you notice a...resemblance? To anyone?”

Snow’s face is confused. Mouth hanging open. Eyes screwed up in confusion.

Horrifically adorable.

“Resemblance?”

“Oh, you know. Golden curls. Looked like a bit like a chosen one I used to know.”

“I. What. Me?” He points to himself.

I raise one eyebrow. “I’ve wanted this for a long time, Snow.”

**Simon**

Sleeping with Baz is like a drug, like the sleeping pills that never worked. I would press my forehead into the back of his neck, tangle my legs in his, throw an arm across his chest.

It’s been good. So good. So terrifyingly good.

Once I realized his “I want to fight you” face was also his “I want to put my mouth all over you” face, it was like I’d unlocked something game-breaking.

Touching him, though. That grounded me in a way that nothing else really had.

Until it just...didn’t. I should really be grateful it lasted as long as it did. Four months of decent sleep was a gift. But it was too good to be true.

This is the third night in a row I’ve stayed over. It’s the third night I haven’t been able to sleep.

My thoughts are spinning and I can feel myself starting to lose control.

Some bloke in the restaurant earlier was staring at him. Fucking him with his eyes.

_I don’t wanna think about that._

Baz can do better. Baz is too good.

_He’s with me though._

I don’t know what he’s fucking thinking. I’m broken. Magicless. A fuck up. Worst chosen one who isn’t even chosen anymore.

_Maybe I am broken. And a fuck up._

If I’d been better, I could’ve saved them. I could’ve saved everyone.

_My fault all my fault all my fucking fault._

The angry tears are back. I need to get out of this place. I need…something that’s not this.

I need to run.

Cause the thoughts are coming (the downward fucking spiral) and if I don’t go soon, they’re gonna catch me. And Baz will see. Baz will see. Baz can’t see.

My body’s shaking as silent sobs tear through me.

Ebb’s empty eyes. The limp way the Mage just fell. Penny screaming. Blood on our skin. Dead goblins, dead dragons, dead vampires, dead werewolves. Dead everything. Dead dead dead.

“Snow?”

_No no no. He can’t see. He can’t see._

I shoot up in bed. “Gotta go.”

Baz’s voice is uneven and low—sleep drunk. “Don’t.”

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. _Where the fuck are my jeans?_

“Snow, don’t go.”

“Got something in the morn—”

I feel his cold hand on my arm.

_Once he sees, he’ll leave. He’d never want this. It’s too much. I’m always too much. It’s too—_

“Snow, look at me.”

I don’t want to. My body is trying to run. But his fingers are squeezing me so tight that I’m worried he’s going to take my arm off.

I’ve never been able to look away from Baz.

He’s up on one elbow, long dark hair falling in waves, worry lines etched into his perfect fucking face. Anyone who’s ever looked into Baz’s eyes knows that there’s fire inside of him, and I can feel the heat from here.

“What are you scared of?”

Merlin, how do I even begin to answer that?

Seconds stretch as he holds me in place and I try to let the words break through the lump in my throat.

“That…” Fuck. Breathe. In and hold and out. “That by the morning, you’ll be gone. The perfect end to this piece of shit story.”

“It’s my flat Snow.”

I try to laugh. Fuck, laughing feels like a burst of light these days. Like a blast of caffeine after a night of no sleep.

“I…” I can feel my face collapsing.

And before I can move— or try to get up, or find my clothes, or leave—I feel cool arms wrap around me.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers against the back of my neck. And it’s not until then that I realize I’m crying. In earnest this time. The heavy weight in my chest is punching its way out into the world and covering everything I love in its fucking mess.

“I’m not…” I gasp.

“Tell me.”

“I’m not okay, Baz.”


	6. Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pinky fingers, My Heart Will Go On, exercise without a purpose, and three inches collapsing in an instant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this one hurts less. <3 
> 
> I did my very best with the medical scenes (just don't squint ;)  
> Thank you to the ineffable arcanine for reading this ahead of time (it's better for it, I assure you).

**BEFORE**

**Baz (18 years old)**

Sometimes, when he’s kissing me, it’s like he’s drowning and I’m the air that’s keeping him alive. And it terrifies me, because I’m not sure that I’m enough, if I’ll ever be enough. 

Tonight went something like that. His lips were desperate as they moved against mine.

Until he rolled off of me and stared silently at the wall.

I have no idea what to do. 

“I’ll stay up with you.” It’s looking like it is going to be another long night, and it’s the only thing I can think to say. 

“No. I'm not dragging you down with me, just cause I can't sleep.”

“Snow. Before you refuse my extremely considerate offer—"

"—Wanker—"

"—Reflect back on our time as roommates.” I thought (hoped) since that night he cried in my arms, he would keep letting me in, keep telling me about how he’s feeling and what he’s trying to hide. Turns out, doors into dark places don’t swing themselves wide open. They open slow. Inch by excruciating inch.

“I don’t understand,” he starts, but I cut him off.

“How many times did you wait up, trying to catch me plotting or hunting or whatever other things your twisted little brain thought I was up to?”

Simon shrugs. “Dunno. Probably hundreds.” 

“And did you see a decline in my academic excellence?”

“Fuck you. You’re fishing for compliments.” 

“Humour me.”

Simon rolls his eyes. “You were still the smartest bloke I knew.” 

“Sleepless nights without a hair out of place.” 

“Smarmy fuck.” 

“You love it.” 

He turns over and the intensity behind his eyes makes my heart stutter. “I do.” 

“As fond as I am of your newfound cardio routine,” I say, allowing one hand to sneak up and under his shirt. I hear him gasp and the sound is enough to wake up all kinds of delicious feelings. “I think I’d rather walk. Is that alright?”

He leans into my touch and presses a kiss to my cheek. “You want to walk around with me in the middle of the night?”

“Yes.” 

“You hate walking. Call it ‘exercise without a purpose.’”

He's mocking me, but in this moment, I don't care. “I’d follow you anywhere, Snow.”

“That’s my line,” he grumbles. But I feel his resolve cracking. The door opening just a tiny bit more. 

“Doesn’t make it less true.”

I feel his fingers balling in my pajamas. “Yeah. Let’s do that then.” 

The sounds of a train rumbles in the distance. I can hear our footfalls clapping gently against this night. 

We’re not looking at each other. Our fingers are barely touching. He’s got his pinky hooked onto the edge of my fingers and something in my chest squeezes. 

“I’m so tired, Baz.” 

I know that he’s not talking about the darkening sky on this particular night. That he’s been tired for a long time and that it is finally catching up to him.

“When I get stressed,” he says, not looking at me, “when I can’t sleep and I feel like everything’s useless, I…I listen to you breathe.”

I want to look over but force myself to stare straight ahead. Turns out, Snow’s not keen on vulnerability either. I try to stay calm. To be content in the feeling the backs of his fingers brushing against mine, in the sound of his breaths evening out, in the way that the night seems to settle over us, like a warm blanket after a long day. 

“You don’t have to do this alone.” 

“I know.”

**AFTER**

**Baz (25 years old)**

The paramedics rush the stretcher into the emergency department. Florence is driving this show, built like a brick shit house and powering her way into the trauma bay. One of our nurses (I think his name is Gerry) (could be Terry) hurries after the head, pumping the bag-mask. I don’t know the paramedic on top of the patient, but she’s delivering compressions as they crash through our back doors. 

“Mrs. Mierzwiak,” Florence says, panting a little. “51-years old female. Seventeen-year-old son said he found her in the doorway. No idea how long she was down. Kid tried to do compressions, but he was alone. Took him a while to call the ambulance. Completely non-responsive.” 

My hand reaches instinctively for her neck. Her skin is cool and clammy, and as my fingers settle against her carotid, I already know what I’ll find. I don’t need the pressure against her throat to know what’s going on inside. My vampire sense can hear her heart dead in her chest. 

“No pulse,” the paramedic says. 

“Do we have a rhythm?”

Rhetorical question, really. I don’t need the monitor to know that she’ll be flat.

“No.”

I look down at the body. 

There was a day, back when I was a resident, that something shifted in my head. The people who came into hospital stopped being real, unique, rounded characters. I started to think about them as bodies. Blood bags that I didn’t attach feelings to. 

It wasn’t just one loss, one dead patient, one moment where I thought I could’ve done something more. No. It was an accumulation of stress and guilt. 

In a crisis, caring gets patients killed.

I stick to that motto these days. Regulate my emotions with the rigour and discipline of a drill sergeant with new recruits. 

But something about this woman has my throat tightening.

Her flowing dark hair. Those sharp cheek bones. The pronounced brow. She could be Fiona’s sister. She could be…

“This one’s a long shot, Pitch.” Florence is not really supposed to say that, but one look at the woman’s face tells me she’s right. 

_It’s not her. You know it’s not her. Pull yourself together, Pitch._

“CODE BLUE!” I let my voice boom across emergency. 

“Get me a crash cart, now. Jenna, get an RT paged.” 

Codes aren’t like they look on TV. They happen fast and everyone involved is panicking inside. But they’re also organized. 

Because they have to be.

“Respiratory therapist to emergency,” I hear the raspy voice of the operator wafting through the halls.

“Steve, trade off with the paramedic and start chest compression.” Powerful thighs climb onto the edge of the bed, hovering above Mrs. Mierzwiak and giving him leverage. The blanket crinkles as her chest is crushed and released, crushed and released. She’s not going to have a single rib left intact.

_Too long. She’s been without air for too long._

“Megan, you’re maintaining the airway.”

“Right.” The plastic bag crushes closed and refills. 

“Darcy, draw me up 1mg epinephrine.”

I still can’t hear a pulse. No beeps on the monitor. No gentle thud in my ears. No blood rushing in and out of her chest. 

“Administer epinephrine.” 

Darcy shits into frame. “Administering epinephrine.” 

She’s dead. She’s been dead for more than twenty minutes. She’s not coming back. 

The flatline blasts a single note into my ears. 

More compressions. The RT arrives. And on

and on 

and on.

While the dead woman stays dead. 

“Stephanie, get ready to switch with Darcy.” 

_She’s dead. Just let her die._

Everyone is looking at me. They know she’s been gone. Was probably gone when her son found her. 

But I can’t. I just…can’t. 

My wand is in my pocket. It’s right there. I could just touch it. Try to bring her back. Make it right. Give one son back his mother.

_Would it really be so bad?_

My magical life and my normal one do not overlap often. Healing spells work well on magical wounds and are unpredictable on natural ones. 

I reach into my pocket, touch my wand, say a prayer. I’ve been practicing this. It could work…It should work.

“ _My heart will go on_ ,” I whisper. 

_Please_.

 _Please._

I hear the monitor before the nurse. “There’s a pulse, Dr. Pitch.” Her voice is breathy and there’s surprise in it. 

“Normal rhythm.”

“Stop compressions.” 

“Stabilize…”

I’m on autopilot, still talking, still directing, but I can’t look away from the long thin face, the black hair splayed around her head—dark as pitch. 

And I’m not the only one staring. Everyone’s eyes are locked on the body limp our stretcher, the sharp shock blazing. Every look is telling the same story. 

This woman wasn’t supposed to come back. 

…

“I don’t know if I should call you a fucking shit magnet or Lazarus,” Sheila says. 

“Going biblical on me, Sheila?” I try to keep my voice level, but it sounds like my teeth are chattering. 

_I fucked up. I fucked up so badly._

“I’m sorry about what happened after.”

I can’t think about what had happened after. About how I should’ve known better. About the corpse I’d given a heartbeat—

I flinch as she reaches for my hand. I don’t want to be touched. Not right now. 

“It’s not your fault, kid.”

“If you say so,” I say, trying to roll my eyes. Trying to pretend that I’m taking this all in stride. 

Sheila knows better. Better than to believe me. Better than to push me. “Go home, Baz. Sleep it off. Seriously. Today was hard. We’ll try again tomorrow.” 

I want to smile. To thank her for knowing me well enough to leave me alone. If I could just manage to quirk my lips up into the ghost of a smile. 

“You’re okay, Baz. We’ll come back tomorrow, and we’ll try again. Like we always do.”

And she just swats me on the back and waves me out of my own fucking office.

The sliding doors hiss open and closed, recycled air mixing with the open sky. I stand against the building and my fingers itch for a cigarette, for something warm creeping into my lungs and smoothing my nerves (I quit years ago) (I think someone told me doctors shouldn’t smoke) (although I couldn’t tell you who).

I want to go home. Every inch of me is itching to be in bed. To just crawl under my down comforter and pull the curtains closed, to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend the last hour of my shift didn’t happen. But my mind is raw. Too raw for bed. Thinking about my flat right now sends spasms of claustrophobia rippling through me. 

I can’t go home. Not yet. 

The November sun is making a slow descent in the sky. It’s ten past six but the air’s warm for the time of year. I try to focus on my breathing. On the way it fills my chest and then pushes out. In and out. 

I’m no stranger to anxious feelings but this cocktail of regret and shame makes the anxiety sharp as razor blades. My brain is bleeding a panicked death by a thousand cuts. 

Maybe I’ll go for a walk. 

I don’t remember when or why I started to do this. Fiona insists that a younger version of me hated walking. At Christmas last year, she’d screwed up her face and pranced around her apartment, parroting my own words back at me. “But Baz,” she’d squawked. “Exercise without a purpose is mind numbingly dull.” Apparently, I also considered hiking to be the sport of imbeciles (that is definitely still true). 

And yet. 

Here we are. 

The sliding doors open and close again as an older couple steps out into the night. 

_It’s time to go._

The effort feels colossal, but I push off the side of the building and start to walk. 

Pavement disappears under my feet. I resist the urge to count the cracks. I’m not sure where I’m going and, under normal circumstances, this would agitate me. I don’t like operating without a plan. Tonight, though, I can’t find the energy to care. 

I’ll walk myself out, until my feet blister or my mind settles, and then I’ll call an Uber. It’s as good a plan as any. 

I’m not really surprised when I see him—not really. Sometimes, I think I can feel them coming on. These glimpses of the mysterious boy. 

_The sounds of a train rumbles in the distance. I can hear our footfalls clapping gently against this night._

_We’re not looking at each other. Our fingers are barely touching. He’s got his pinky hooked onto the edge of my fingers and something in my chest squeezes._

_“I’m so tired, Baz.”_

_I know that he’s not talking about the darkening sky on this particular night. That he’s been tired for a long time and that it is finally catching up to him._

_“When I get stressed,” he says, not looking at me, “when I can’t sleep and I feel like everything’s useless, I…I listen to you breathe.”_

_I want to look over but force myself to stare straight ahead. Turns out, Snow’s not keen on vulnerability either. I try to stay calm. To be content in the feeling the backs of his fingers brushing against mine, in the sound of his breaths are evening out, in the way that the night seems to settle over us, like a warm blanket after a long day._

_“You don’t have to do this alone.”_

_“I know.”_

Usually, the glimpses fade. The memories wash away and all that I have left is the knowledge that he was there. I can’t hold on to him, almost as if there is no anchor to keep the thoughts in place. 

It’s always this way. Like the tides, pushing the waves up against the shore, only to pull them back again and leave me with the knowledge they’d been there

and that they would be back

and nothing else.

It’s been happening for years. Except for tonight. Tonight is different. 

Maybe it’s because it’s late or maybe because it’s the end of one of the longest shifts of my life. 

The memory doesn’t fade. I have one foot in the past and another on the road ahead of me, and this beautiful boy walks beside me in both. 

Making sure that I don’t have to do this alone. 

I know that the warm feeling in my chest will fade. That I can’t keep it, keep him. But for now, the sense of his pinky sneaking into my palm is the only thing in the universe worth having and I just want to hold— 

The sounds of people shouting and something hard bouncing against pavement brings me back down to earth. As I look up, irritation undisguised on my face, the glimpse starts to fade. 

_No. Please._

I see a fence, bodies scrambling under the dim light and…is that a basketball court? My temper is flaring and I can’t remember what was fueling it. My feet take me towards the edge of the asphalt. 

The rims don’t even have mesh attached anymore and most of the kids are playing in jeans. Except for one bulky body, who’s running back down towards the opposite basket, dribbling awkwardly, a mess of golden curls bouncing. 

_It can’t be…_

“Jess!” he shouts as he passes the ball hard. 

_At least his aim is not as bad as his ball handling_. 

Jess catches in mid stride, streaking in towards the net, and lays the ball up into the basket. More shrieks crash into my ears. The bumbling beautiful lump is crashing into three other kids, picking one of them up and spinning them around so fast, I feel dizzy. 

It’s sweet enough to give me a toothache. 

It’s the ridiculous social worker from a few weeks past. The one who never called. The beautiful disaster who walked back into Dylan’s follow up appointment last week and acted like he’d never met me before. “I’m so sorry,” he’d said, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “Guess I was really out of it that day.” 

The man who, even though he had the memory of a goldfish and the grace of a wrecking ball, I would take apart with my hands. In a fucking heartbeat.

I should go. Leave now, before anyone sees me. 

_NO._

Something urgent and needy is moving inside of me. (Did the crucible feel like this?) I’m raising my hand, walking towards him, and waving before my mind can catch up.

And this time, as he lifts his gorgeous head and looks up at me, recognition lights like a fire in his eyes. 

**Simon**

Jesus fucking Christ. I’m dreaming. It’s the only explanation. Because that gorgeous bloke from the hospital is walking towards me, looking like the McSexy doctor from some daytime TV show and I think I’m swooning. 

Something about him is so familiar. And it shouldn’t be. There’s nothing typical about him; he’s fucking exceptional in every single way and, yeah, my knees are turning to jelly. 

Last week, I felt like a proper fucking numpty when he walked into the exam room and I had no idea who he was. It didn’t make sense. He swore that he’d been the one who’d examined Dyl in emerg, and that wasn’t so long ago. But I would’ve remembered him if we’d met before. Because, Merlin and Morganna, you don’t forget someone like that. Like _him._

Thank fuck we are wrapping up. I need an excuse to make him stay, to be alone with him, even if I can only wrangle a few minutes. 

“Snowcone?”

Greg’s voice yanks me back to reality. “Right,” I say, looking around at the gangly teens. “I gotta run.” This isn’t formal programming. Not really. About a year ago, I saw Jess (one of my kids in care) shooting hoops alone on my walk home. Her elbows were cocked out, she was trying to shoot with her arms. I didn’t know much about basketball, but I found myself walking over. 

“Wanna play HORSE?” I’d ask.

“What the fuck is that, Snowcone?” It’s a nickname that Jess gave me years ago that I haven’t been able to shake. I know that she’s secretly delighted, the little schemer.

And I’d showed her. 

I don’t have to walk this way home from work, but I always do. And when I see some of my kids shooting hoops, I always stop. 

“Who’s that?” Greg asks, elbowing me in the stomach.

I look up. _Baz. That was his name. Dr. Baz Pitch._ “A friend.” I try to keep my voice level. 

“Sure it is,” Kelly says, waggling his eyebrows before picking up the ball and taking a casual shot. 

I’m not blushing. Not here. Not in front of a dozen teenagers. I’m a grown ass adult. I’m—

“Why’s your face so red?” Jess says, her dark eyes narrowed.

“Gotta run!” I squeak, hurrying away from these hooligans as fast as my dignity will allow. It’s all for not. Someone whistles and the others burst into laughter as I rush towards Baz. 

He definitely heard that. 

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._

**Baz**

Those children are harassing him and he’s running away in panicked retreat. Nothing about this should be endearing or adorable or desirable. Not in any way. But as I spot the colour flaring to life in his cheeks, all I feel is something soft and disgustingly affectionate. 

I’m sick. I’ve got some kind of disease.

“Baz!” he says, that toothy smile smashing me over the head. I didn’t understand what it meant to be dazzled before. Until now. Now, I think I have been properly dazzled. 

He’s got a hoodie pulled over a collared shirt and he’s in a pair of dark denim jeans that hug his thighs in all of the right places. There’s sweat dripping down the side of his cheek. I want to lick it (I’m disturbed) (ask anyone). 

Fuck, I waved him over. He’s going to expect me to say something. I’m woefully unprepared for any kind of social interaction, never mind something mildly flirtatious with this cross between Hercules and prince Eric (yeah, I’ve thought about it). “I’m impressed. Your memory recall appears to have improved.” 

_Fuck, of course I insulted him. Because that’s what people like. Being insulted._

His mouth is hanging open _(mouth breather)_. “What?”

“You managed to remember my name this time.” 

That lovely chin juts out ( _fighting stance)._

“You keep saying that,” he says, closing the rest of the distance between us. “But I know I would’ve remembered you.” 

“Selective amnesia,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets and sneering down at him. “Not usually present in someone so young. Perhaps a brain injury?” 

“Wanker,” he says, but he’s smiling again. Maybe he likes fighting? Maybe I do too? “What’re you doing here, anyway?”

I’m not sure how to answer that. “Would you like honesty or something simpler, Snow?” Even as the words leave my lips, I know I sound almost as tired as I feel. 

“Whatever you wanna give me, I guess.”

I toy with those words, tasting them. “I had a difficult day.” I struggle to keep my voice cool. Collected. “At work.” 

The bastard is biting his lip and I can practically hear the gears turning in his head. “Wanna grab a cuppa?”

“A cuppa—” I whisper, but he’s still talking. The beautiful bastard’s words are on a stampede.

“And then maybe walk for a bit?”

“—You want to walk with me—” 

“And we could just…talk it out?”

“Talk it out?” I’m so surprised, I don’t have time to put any bite behind my words. 

Simon shrugs. “It’s kinda what I do. Just…y’know…not usually with adults.” 

A laugh bursts out of me and I have no idea where it came from. “That sounds perfectly acceptable.”

“Is that your way of saying ‘yes, a chat’d be nice?’” 

“That’s as close to a compliment as you will generally hear from me, Snow. So yes.” 

“Arsehole,” he says, but we’re walking together now, away from the dying basketball court, and there’s something about it that feels as natural as breathing. “C’mon, there’s a place not too far from here. It’s peaceful and shit.”

“Is that your clinical assessment.” 

“Fuck off.” 

**Simon**

The sun is winking goodnight as we walk up onto the bridge. I don’t know why I brought him here—don’t really know why I asked him to come at all. Maybe it was something in the way his voice seemed to shrink. Nothing about this man should feel small. 

The bridge is an unspectacular thing, too narrow for cars, hiding behind a bunch of cluttered residential streets. 

“Used to come here when I was in uni,” I say, leaning my elbows on the ledge and breathing tufts of air out over the edge. My breath crystallizes in the frosty air. “Would run this way most nights. It’s one of the few places in the city where you can see the stars.” 

He laughs into his coffee. It’s a tiny thing and I find that I’m desperate to hear it again. To know what made the beautiful huff of happiness come out of his chest. 

“Tell me about it,” I say, not looking at him. Trying to pretend that I’m not a nervous ball of energy, desperate to keep him here for as long as I can have him. “Your shit day, I mean. Tell me.”

“It’s tedious and full of medical jargon. I’m sure you’ll just find it—” 

“Tell me,” I say again, because sometimes, people need to be sure that you want to listen. 

And so he does. 

“It shouldn’t have gone the way it did,” he says, so quietly, I barely hear him. “She came in without a heartbeat. Had probably been dead for a while before they found her. I should’ve thought it through.”

“Thought what through?” I say, my words a gentle nudge, to let him know I’m listening. 

“Your brain,” he says, clearly dumbing his words down for my benefit. “It needs oxygen. Without it, you’ve got about four minutes before permanent damage begins to set in.” 

“Okay.” Another nudge. 

“The paramedics were doing CPR the whole way into hospital. No luck. I was the doctor leading the hand off. I told them to keep going.” He pauses, and this time, I let him gather his thoughts. 

“I brought…”

Deep breaths, in and out. I see them mingling in the air with mine. “I brought her back.”

“I’m no doctor, but isn’t that the idea?”

“Generally. But Snow.” His voice breaks and I can hear him trying to collect himself. “She came back completely brain dead. A vegetable. No chance for recovery. No life to return to. No one was home.” 

“Oh fuck.” 

“Oh fuck indeed. Her son.” His breathing is starting to get faster and faster. 

“He found her. Lost her once.” Baz’s sentences are coming out in fast bursts. “He had to watch as they took her off life support.” Breath breath. “He had to watch his father make that decision. He had to watch her die. Again. And it was my fault.” 

“No—” 

“Yes.” 

“Baz, take a deep breath.”

“I can’t.” He’s starting to panic. I can see it in his eyes. He’s breathing like there’s no air left. Like his lungs can’t get their fill. 

“Hey.” I close the distance between our feet and taking both of his hands in mine. “Stop talking. Listen to me breathe.”

**Baz**

He’s close. His voice is serious and raspy and his hands are the only thing keeping me tethered to this world. “Match me,” he says. “In-2-3-4 and out 2-3-4.” 

It’s not enough. I can’t breathe I can’t—

“Listen to me.” Steady voice and firm hands.

“In.” He takes a long breath.

“And out.” I can feel the air on my cheeks.

“In.”

Breathe.

“And out.”

Breathe.

Again and again and again. Until his words are the only things I can hear and his hands are the only things I can feel and the world starts to settle. 

“Better?”

“Yes,” I whisper. I will not cry in front on top of this stupid bridge, over this stupid lake, in front of this stupid man. He’s still holding my hands.

“You have panic attacks very often?” 

I shake my head. So much for my romantic aspirations. The first time I get sexy social worker alone, I have a meltdown. “Not for a long time. Today was…” I pause, still matching his breathing without really meaning to. “I try not to bring work home with me. Today...”

I struggle for the words. “I made a choice and it was the wrong one. It wasn’t enough.”

_I should’ve known better. I do know better._

The silence is strangling me while my thoughts cut me apart. I let myself breathe with him. Keep breathing and breathing. He still hasn’t let go of my hands.

“This is gonna sound stupid,” Simon says, staring out over the water. “It’s not the same. But I feel like I make the wrong choice. All the fucking time.”

“Do you?” My voice cracks in half. I need him to fill this silence or it’s going to bury me. “Tell me. Tell me a story Snow.”

A big breath in (his chest stretches against his shirt and my heart flutters) and out. I match him. We match.

“When I first decided to be a social worker…” _Use your words, Snow._

“I thought that I could fix things. I wanted things to be better than they were for…well for me.” 

“You were in care too?” Disney prince’s shadow stretches long in the moonlight.

“Yeah, my whole life.” His heart is beating a crescendo in his chest and I want (so badly) to kiss his pulse points. 

_So alive._

“But I thought that if I was just really good at my job…”

“That you could change things.”

He’s nodding again.

“I try. Like, I try really hard. And I stay late and apply for additional funding and run programs,” he gestures to the court behind him, “and volunteer and just show up sometimes. And I…” 

His long neck is curved up and he’s staring into the clouds. I see him swallow, watch the muscles of his throat move in time.

“I feel like I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and no one hears me cause the system is so big and the people who I need to yell at are just so far up and I’m not…”

“Not what?”

“It’s not enough.” He lowers his chin and looks at me. Stares straight into my eyes. I wasn’t expecting it. I’m frozen, caught in the simple bottomless blue of his irises.

“And no matter which decisions I make—let Harry stay with his shit relatives who abuse him or move Harry to a group home with a dozen other kids and workers who aren’t parents. And maybe the abuse happens anyway, but kids are quieter about it. Or I move him to a shit foster placement, where all they want is the fucking cheque at the end of the month. Or kick they kick the shit out of him there too, just like Dyl.” His sigh is heavy with emotion that I can’t name but understand in my bones. 

“I’m not enough, Baz.” 

It’s intimate and intense and I have no idea what to say. I’m scared to move. 

A soft chuckle rumbles out of him and he finally looks away. “So I come here,” he says. “It helps me sometimes, so I thought maybe…”

“It would help me.” What a romantic fucking fool. 

“Yeah, that’s about right. You can uh…I like that you can see the stars.”

“Snow,” I say, leaning a little closer (there’s not much space left between us). “The stars are written all over you.”

Bashful changes to hungry so fast I can barely keep up. The courageous fuck squeezes my cold hands in his warm ones and pulls me into him. Three inches collapse in an instant.

And then I feel his mouth on mine and I didn’t know what it meant to feel like you were drowning in someone until this exact moment.

He lets my hands drop and brings them up to my face, cradling me like I’m something worth having. As I feel his tongue against mine, feel the tangle of his soft curls between my fingers, feel his air become mine and become his again, I think that I could die kissing Simon Snow and that would be a perfect end to this piece of shit day. 

When he pulls away, I almost whimper (I suffocate the sound at the last second. I’m a Pitch. We do not whimper).

“I wanna see you again,” Simon says.

“Dyl’s got another follow up—” 

“No, I want to take you out.” 

“Oh.” The word feels too small. “Alright.”

“Hang on,” he says, fumbling around in his pockets until he pulls out a pen. “Occupational hazard,” he mumbles, pulling the top off between his teeth. Animal.

“What’re you—” 

“Here,” he says, taking my hand and pressing his pen to my skin. “I feel like this night was…well a little weird. I’m a bit much. I know I’m a bit…. So you don’t have to call if you don’t want to but you can if you weren’t freaked out and…yeah.”

“Are you finished?” I say and the smile that transforms my face feels like a miracle. 

Snow shrugs. _A shrug is not a sentence, Snow._ “You are not too much, Simon Snow. You are exactly what I needed tonight.”

“Yeah?” he says, shuffling from foot to foot. 

“Yes.” 

“So you’ll call me?” I look down at the number scrawled across my palm. 

“You know I would’ve given you my mobile. You could’ve programmed it in instead of defacing my skin.” 

The glow in his cheeks is delicious. “I like it better this way.”

“Vandal,” I hiss. 

“Won’t be the last time. If you let me,” he whispers. And for once, I’m grateful for my condition because if I could blush, I’d be a funeral pyre. 

“You think so?” I say, raising one eyebrow and trying to maintain some semblance of composure. 

“Fucking right I do.” And when he kisses me again, in the middle of a bridge, in the middle of nowhere, I believe him.


	7. Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A relationship measured in inches, glass clutches, and bravery in every context.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning, there's a fair bit of blood and physical injury in this chapter. 
> 
> Also, thank the Fanfic gods for the effervescent Arcanine, who beta'd this for me.

**AFTER**

**Simon (25 years old)**

Everyone goes on about how they wanna land a doctor—money and prestige and all that. I’m trying to figure out the benefits, honestly. Cause from where I’m standing, it’s fucking inconvenient.

If Baz weren’t stupid fit, or funny in that sharp way...

...if his face didn’t get so fucking beautiful when he was thinking hard about something, or if his mouth didn’t taste so good…

...yeah, if it weren’t Baz, I don’t think I’d date another doctor ever again.

The schedule is a nightmare.

“You’re persistent, Snow,” Baz grumbles one day as he sips his disgustingly sweet Starbucks monstrosity in the hospital cafeteria (he'd pushed from a night shift into the early morning, and was on his eighteenth hour of work when he had texted, _Just bring me some decent coffee, Snow)_. “I didn’t expect to have to spend huge swaths of my down time with social services. Even if you are unnaturally handsome.”

“Does that mean you want me to stop coming by?”

He raises his eyes up out of the mountain of whip cream. “I didn’t say that.”

On days when I’m doing home visits, I’ll sneak by on my lunch breaks and drop him that rare steak wrap he likes so much from the food cart down the road. Yeah, I may’ve started cataloguing his favourite meals. Whatever. I don’t think it makes me a stalker (although Baz won’t stop calling it plotting).

And I know he’s just as keen. Mostly cause, a couple weeks into whatever this is, he sent me a text.

_Dr. McSexy (10:48 pm): I’ve just left the building and I’m so tired I think I’m going to fall into bed and sleep for the next century._

**Simon (10:50 pm): thats what you get for saving lives**

_Dr. McSexy (10:52 pm): It will be the world’s worst date, with no activity to speak of, but I did not see your ridiculous face today and I think that I would like to. Care to join me?_

**Simon (10:53 pm): is this a booty call Baz?**

I don’t know why I asked that. We haven’t exactly gone there yet. Everything with Baz has been surprisingly above belt—although I’m kinda keen to change that. Soon. Very soon. 

_Dr. McSexy (10:54): As much as I appreciate your respect for my stamina, no. In the interest of transparency, this will be sleep. So much sleep._

**Simon (10:53 pm): ill be right over.**

It’s strange. I’ve never taken to anyone like this. It almost feels…it sounds stupid, but it almost feels like I already know him and he already knows me. Being with Baz is as natural as breathing.

I’ve started to dream about him. Detailed fucking dreams. We look younger in all of them and stupidly in love in most. Some are so sad that I wake up with tears in my eyes that I can’t explain. Some are so good I never want to let them go. The more time I spend with Baz, the more I have. The more I hold on to them. The more I remember.

It feels like we’ve done this before. There’s a coat of deja vu all over everything.

It doesn’t matter. Every second I get with Baz is precious and I will take everything he’s willing to give.

Which is why I’m here. Parked outside his flat. At 10:00 in the morning (even though Baz is not a morning person) on his Saturday off. I’ve got one of his stupid coffees, I’ve got a breakfast sandwich, and I’ve got this whole goddamn day planned.

I will get Baz out his bed and into my car if it’s the last thing I do.

I pick up my phone, find his contact information, and press call.

“Waddiyou want Snow,” he answers, voice all mussed and sleep logged. I love him like this.

“Open your windows and look at this fucking day.”

“I will do no such thing.” I can hear the brattiness in his voice.

“Baz. We will NOT get another day like this. It’s freakishly nice. Seriously, it’s like December forgot who it was and decided to be June.”

“So it’s a nice day. What of it?” The sleep is falling away and I can hear his voice start to smooth over 

“Come for a drive with me.”

“A drive?”

“Yeah.”

“With you?”

“Me and coffee and food. I think it’d be nice.”

The groan that crawls through the speaker is guttural, highly unimpressed, but definitely yielding.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s more a you’re-a-huge-pain-in-my-arse-and-I-can’t-believe-I’m-awake-this-early-on-a-Saturday.”

“So, yes?”

“Fine.”

“Excellent. Because I’m outside your flat.”

“You are irritatingly persistent. And an absolute menace.”

“That’s how you tell me you’re pleased, innit? Now get your lanky arse down here.”

“Last I checked, you like my lanky arse.”

I go silent on the phone. _The things I would do…_

“Bring me that coffee and wait patiently and then maybe we can—”

“Kay buzz me up!”

**Baz**

“I can’t believe you drive a jaguar,” Snow says, resting his hand on my thigh. We’ve nearly escaped the crush of the city and the sunshine is practically singing as it dances over the cool winter day. He’s tracing his fingers up and down my leg; it’s simple and sweet and its driving me mad. I resist the urge to look over at the beautiful man in the passenger seat. If I do, I might combust.

He’s got the window down and the wind is tossing golden hair around his head. The cool air chills my bones (I’ve always hated the draft from open windows, all the way back to my Watford days), but I don’t mention it, because I’m already weak for this bumbling idiot. I’m so sick with this man—it’s a disease that I can’t explain.

The urge to light up a cigarette tugs at my fingers, and I can almost feel the smoke burning inside my lungs. “Something about smoking and driving,” I whisper as I let my restless fingers rest against the open window. “It’s one of the only times I miss it.”

“Doctors shouldn’t smoke,” Simon says, and I can’t help but grin. Something familiar tugs inside of me, a memory of a golden-haired boy frowning down his freckled nose at me.

“You’re probably right. Setting a bad example, I suppose.”

I probably would’ve barked at anyone else who dared call me before noon on my day off, but I can’t bring myself to regret today. The smell of coffee fills the interior. Simon is playing with my iPhone, making his way through my musical history. We skip through Bowie and Radiohead, Tina Turner and Taylor Swift (a guilty pleasure).

The stress drains out of my shoulders and when I turn the music up, he starts to sing. The wind swallows most of his voice and the volume swallows the rest. Only my vampire hearing gives his hopeless voice away. But he sings like a kid would sing, like the world is ending, like no one is watching.

His fingers continue their work on my sanity, tracing lines into my thigh, rubbing the back of my neck, playing with stray strands of my hair. My chest feels like it’s going to explode. Crowley, I’m so sick with this man.

Eventually, he turns the music down. “Baz?”

“Snow.”

“Your car is so…”

“Clean?” I supply.

“I was gonna say sterile. Like a fucking operating room.”

“Fancy word, Snow.”

“Fuck off.”

“I am a doctor. Not sure what you expected.”

He shrugs.

“Bet you drive a beater.”

“With a tape deck,” he adds, smiling at me.

“Of course you do, Snow.” Adorable.

“Why do you call me by my last name? I don’t mind, but it feels…”

_Familiar. You feel familiar Simon Snow._

“I don’t know.” It’s the only answer I have. I can’t tell him that he reminds me of someone. A boy that I’ve been catching glimpses of for years. That I feel like I’ve found something that I’d thought I’d lost forever.

That the memories are starting to stick and I’m terrified that they might be of him.

Of us.

**BEFORE**

**Baz (19 years old)**

The trilling sound of my ringer drones on and on against my ear. I’ve been trying to ring Simon for the better part of half an hour. He’s not picking up.

Panic is rising like bile in my throat. _Not again._

I look down at my phone and see a photo of snow grinning up at me from my home screen. (I’ve got Snow saved as my background) (I dreamed about these details of domestic bliss) (because I’m hopeless).

A golden boy is smiling up at me, his cheeks pinched and rosy from the cold. He’s flat on his arse, staring up into the camera, and I caught him right in the middle of a laughing fit.

Crowley, that’s a nice memory.

“C’mon chosen one,” I’d said. “The ice isn’t going to hurt you.”

“Easy for you to say,” he’d growled as he inched out. “You’re prancing around like you’re in a fucking Christmas movie. Good at fucking everything you do.”

I’d taken his hands then, started pulling him as I skated backwards around the rink. “You love it.”

“Show off,” he grumbles, but starts to move his legs.

“I think you mean to say, wow, what a wonderful, exceedingly talented boyfriend I have.” I kissed him then, on that delicious looking cheek, rubbed red by the cold.

I was so overwhelmed when I snapped that photo—so hopelessly lost in the simple pleasure of existing in the same world as Simon Snow. Of watching him try to muscle his way through ice skating, of how he’d fallen again and again, of the layer of frost on his arse. The way he laughed (loud and so fucking alive) filled my chest to the brim.

That’s the moment on my home screen. Looking at it now leaves me feeling bloodless, like I haven’t fed for days, even though I downed half a litre of butcher’s blood this morning. I want to give him moments like those ones all the time. Every day for the rest of forever.

And I keep fucking it up.

I sigh, open up my phone, and start to dial again. This isn’t the first time I’ve called Penelope Bunce these past few weeks and I doubt it will be the last.

“Hey Baz.” She answers on the second ring.

“How is he?”

“Locked himself in his room since last night. Won’t come out.” Her voice sounds thin and worried. Probably a lot like mine.

“I’m outside. I’ve brought reinforcements.” I shift the tray with two hot cups of coffee and bag of fresh scones in one hand to get a better grip on my phone. “Wanna buzz me up?”

“Always,” she says. “You’re the only one he talks to when he goes dark. I was about to call you over.”

“Beat you to it,” I say as the heavy front door blares an angry alarm at me. “I’ll be right there.”

Bunce yanks the front door open and ushers me in. I look around the flat—I’ve been coming here so often in the last few months that it’s starting to feel like home. There’s usually a sheen of chalk dusting everything (whoever thought a chalk board accent wall was a good idea had no sense of cleanliness or taste) and mound of dishes in the sink. Today, though, everything is pristine.

“You’ve been stress cleaning,” I say to Bunce as I dump the food on the counter top. “The compulsion is a bit domestic for you, Bunce.”

On a normal day, Bunce would have a snappy reply. Something sharp or (on occasion) witty, something I might’ve said. That fiendish intellect is one of my favourite things about her .

I wait for the rebuttal, but it doesn’t come.

“Bunce?” I turn around.

She’s standing in the middle of the flat, stuck between the entranceway and the kitchen. Frozen in place. Not moving.

It takes me half a second to realize what’s happening. I see her shoulders sag and start to shake. I see her hands ball into tight fists. Penelope Bunce is trying not to cry. Trying and failing.

I don’t think (if I had, I might’ve hesitated) (I’m not one for physical affection, even when things feel dire). But I’m across the flat in an instant. “Bunce,” I say, pulling her into a tight hug. “He’s going to be okay.”

“No,” she whispers, probably trying to keep her voice low so that Simon doesn’t hear. Considerate to the end. “No, he’s not.”

I squeeze her tighter. Crowley, I’m hugging Penelope Bunce. “We’ll get him through this.”

“I don’t know how.” She’s choking on the silent sobs. I can feel them as they ripple through her. “I’ve read all about it. I’ve tried to talk about CBT and ACT and I just…”

I find myself sympathizing. Research has always been the thing upon which all of my decisions are founded. When I feel lost or scared, I can dive into a book, find a spell, figure out a plan. Books are dependable and they don’t let me down very often.

Bunce can’t fix him, and books can’t fix him, and I don’t know…I don’t know if I can fix him.

I press my lips into her messy red curls and give her one more hard squeeze. “Go, put on pajamas. Watch some of that horrible television show—”

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer is classic and makes me feel calm, thank you very—”

“Yes yes,” I say, waving my hand, secretly pleased that some of Bunce’s fire is back. “You go do that. I’ll stay with Snow.”

“He won’t let me in Baz. He might not let you either—”

“Then I’ll sit out here all night.”

Something soft makes her eyes crinkle. “Okay. Come get me. If you need anything.” And then she does something that Bunce has never done before. She reaches for me on her tip toes and presses a kiss to my cheek. I’m so stunned, I barely have time to react when she follows it up with a swift punch to my arm.

“You’re my favourite vampire, Baz.”

Something warm is squirming inside of me and it’s entirely too much. “And you’re my favourite sentimental scholar. Now go to bed.”

The heavy wood of his door feels like an ending, like a drawbridge that’s closed up tight, like a threshold that I desperately want to cross. I lay my palms against the door and run my fingers along the hard lines.

_What if he doesn’t let me in?_

“Snow?”

The tenor of my voice flutters; I can hear the uncertainty in it.

No answer, but something rustles in the room (vampire hearing at its most useful). It sounds like a duvet crinkling.

I pop the lid off of my coffee and slide down the door. For a moment, I feel a tad undignified, but quickly decide that whoever thinks sitting on the floor is undignified has probably never been in love.

“Here’s the thing,” I say, breathing in the smell of sugar and coffee and trying to find my courage. “I’m not going anywhere, Snow. You can keep that door closed as long as you want. I’ll wait.”

I take a breath. Fuck vulnerability, fuck feelings, fuck the way I feel about this stupid boy.

“I’d wait forever for you.”

More noise. A crisp bag crushed underfoot, and then a graceless thump as I hear him slide down against the door.

We’re back to back, separated by heavy wood and whatever dark things are swirling inside Simon’s head. I can hear him breathing.

“Baz?” It sounds like he’s swallowed sandpaper. “What’re you doing here?”

“Oh, nothing really,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “It’s just, I’m dating this ridiculous boy who is normally quite conscientious. So, when he doesn’t answer my calls, the only logical thing to do is break down his door.”

“I’m…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Snow. Let me in.”

“I’m a mess—”

“You’re always a mess.”

He snorts and I count that as progress.

“I’ve got scones.” This is my secret weapon and, thank Cerise, my boyfriend loves food more than he hates himself.

The door slides inward, just a crack. “Scones?”

I lift the paper bag out of my lap and drop it in the hand extended through the door.

“You don’t mind opening that just a bit more, do you? I want to see your face, Snow.”

Life with the chosen one has always been a fight and so much of our progress towards something better is measured in inches—whether it’s in the three inches he closed in an instant or the inch of solid wood between us now. Inch by inch, we keep closing the distance.

He’s sitting cross-legged, in a pair of trackies and a loose tee. The way he’s sitting—shoulders slumped, hands clamped together in his lap—it’s almost like his structural integrity is compromised. Like there’s something unsteady in his foundations.

The Humdrum broke him open and, when it put him back together, it’s almost like he came back wrong.

“Let’s go for a drive,” I say before he has the chance to look up at me and see the worry on my face. Snow doesn’t like people fussing over him and so I won’t.

“A drive?” His eyes are so puffy and red, I can barely see the blue in them

I pull his hands out of his lap and hold onto them, squeezing too tight. “Yes. Would you like to drive my car, Snow?”

And there (even though it’s buried underneath something dark and heavy) (even though I know that Simon’s not okay) (even if it’s a ghost of the usual grin that’s so blisteringly beautiful it rubs me raw) is the smile that I would cross the universe for.

Snow has always wanted to drive my car. Tonight, I’ll let him.

…

“Your car still smells new. How is that even possible?”

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” I say, trying not to grin. “Or something like that.”

There is something sweet in the way Snow handles my car in the city. He shifts gears like the clutch is made of glass. He eases into stop signs and accelerates with the patience of a geriatric.

And I let him, even though there’s an itch in my fingers and a sudden urge to push my foot through the floor. Because Snow is doing this for me. He wants me to know that he won’t fuck this up. I can read the care in every gentle shuffle from first to second.

As soon as the traffic starts to ease and the streets start to empty, I feel the tension start to ease.

The stress drains out of his shoulders and when I turn the music up, Simon starts to sing.

Pine trees stand at attention, legions and legions standing dark against the nighttime. We’re travelling so fast that the world outside feels like a glob of paint thrown haphazardly against canvas, messy and undefined.

The windows are rolled all the way down and the wind is tossing golden hair around his head. Snow rubs his nose on the sleeve of his green hoodie and even that seems adorable. I’m so sick with this boy.

I slip my shoes off and lift one leg up onto the seat. Then I light up a cigarette and pull smoke through the filter and into my lungs. The relief is brief and hot. I blow the smoke up and out the window.

“Doctors shouldn’t smoke. Set’s a bad example,” he says and I can’t help but grin.

“So you keep telling me.” I take another long drag and let the smoke spill over my lips. The talking points of this well-worn argument bounce around in my head.

_“It’s not like I’ll ever die of lung cancer. Vampires don’t get sick like that, Snow.”_

_“But you’re flammable!”_

_“So is everything.”_

I’m not in the mood tonight. Tonight, I just want to let the cool air wash across my cheeks while my boyfriend rides out whatever is eating him from the inside. “I’ll keep it in mind,” I say.

We’re driving down the highway at night, the stars blinking up above us. Wind crashing all around, the windows all the way down, the music on full blast.

It takes me nearly half an hour to find my courage, but as we start to drift past open fields, I finally find the nerve to turn down the volume and talk to my boyfriend.

“Snow.”

The wind is buffering him as we speed down the open road, sending bronze curls flying everywhere.

_Fucking gorgeous._

I almost lose my nerve so as to preserve this moment of calm.

Almost. “Will you please give me a piece of whatever’s going on in there.” I brush my hand against the bristling undercut.

I see his chin tense in the way that means he’s grinding his teeth. Fighting stance.

_Fuck._

“I don’t wanna put shit on you, Baz. You’re like...” he swallows, and I can see the pain in his face. “You’re the only good thing in my life. And I don’t wanna get my bullshit all over you. I don’t wanna ruin it.”

“You’re an idiot,” I say and, for whatever fucked up reason, that makes him smile. “But you’re my idiot.” He’s mine and it sends a rush of heat through me. “And I’m your boyfriend and this is a part of that Snow.” His smile has given me courage. “So, no more hero bullshit. What happened today?”

I can see the feelings working themselves into a frenzy inside his head. He’s clenching the steering wheel so tight that the skin on his hands are stretched white across his knuckles. 

“It’s hard to explain,” he says, and the words sound like they’re physically painful.

“Try.”

The car speeds up. It’s hard to hear him over the wind when he says, “I feel like I’m drowning. Like there’s something...black and sorta hopeless inside me

and it’s bottomless

and I can’t swim.”

There are tears pooling in his eyes and I want to hold his face in mine, I want to touch him and wipe them away with my thumbs. But I don’t dare move. Because he’s still talking, and I’ve been waiting for this for so long.

“I never used to think before. I could just...dunno. Push it all away and just carry on. But after Ebb and the Mage and the Humdrum...” his voice is cracking all over the place. His words are an earthquake. But Simon keeps going. Brave, in every context.

“I keep trying to shut them out. Running helped for a bit. You helped a lot. But...They’re catching up Baz. No matter what I do.”

“What are you scared of?”

We’re moving so fast I can barely see the lines on the road before they’re gone—one constant line into the darkness.

“I’m scared...I’m scared that I’ll never feel normal again.”

“Explain that to me. Please.”

“Sometimes, I get...so tired. And I feel like I go to sleep. The world stops mattering. I have to fight to care about things. Have to give literally everything just to get through a normal day. Caring about stuff is...it’s hard.”

I need to hold him.

“It’s like I go under water and it’s dark and I can’t see or hear anything.”

To wrap my arms around him.

“But worse than that. I don’t even care. Not about Penny or...or you.”

To never let him go.

“And I’m scared...Baz I’m so scared. That the thoughts and the weight and all of it will suck me under and I won’t wake up. I won’t want to.”

He’s giving me so many words. I want to tell him. That I love him. That I’ve loved him for so long. That I thought I’d die loving him. But now just doesn’t feel like the time. Not now, with tears streaming down his face and his emotions a live wire, and the speedometer climbing and climbing.

I place my hand on his knee and squeeze it gently. “Slow down, love.” There. That’s the best I can do.

We don’t.

He’s looking at me, the wind blowing the tears across his cheeks, the hard line of his jaw shaking. 

He’s so beautiful it hurts.

Neither of us see it quickly enough. When the deer steps out into the road, we are going too fast to stop, too fast to get out of the way.

I watch his face turn, see the realization flash in his eyes.

He must’ve slammed on the breaks, because my body is flying forward. Pain, blinding, writhing, all-encompassing pain is crashing through my leg. White knuckles wrench the wheel and the car spins, slick in the spring rain painting the pavement. 

I see the ditch from the passenger seat. Somethings wrong. We’re going in sideways. We’re...

The world is upside down and I feel weightless, like I’m flying for just a split second in time that feels like forever.

I hear glass shattering, feel shards on my cheeks, hear some giant metal crunch and my brain can’t register, can’t catch up.

Too much too fast too late.

...

Something is dripping against my hand. It’s wet. It feels sticky. One drip. Then another. I open my eyes.

Fuck. I’m upside down.

I feel like someone punched a hole in my chest. Because I’m hanging from my seat belt. Right.

Sometimes, being a vampire has its advantages. That would’ve been way worse if I were—

“Simon!”

I look over at the driver’s side. He’s there. Limp. Golden curls covered in blood. 

“No!”

I thrash against the belt. Something sharp screams in my right leg but it barely registers.

He can’t be—

Something in my mind sharpens. _Don’t panic._

I reach down and find the buckle for my seat belt. 

_This is probably going to hurt._

As my body hits the roof of the car with a thud, my leg erupts. White light explodes across my vision and I feel nausea shuddering in my guts. 

I’m gonna be sick.

_No! Not yet I’m not._

I need to get us out.

I crawl across the ceiling. The pain is a living thing but there’s no time for it. I squint through the tears as I reach Simon. He’s just hanging there. He’s not moving. He’s—

I lift my hand and brush some of the hair off of his face. There’s so much blood, it’s sticking between my fingers.

It smells sweet, like cinnamon and smoke, and I feel my gums itch.

_NO. Not now._

“I’ll get you out of here. You’ll be okay.”

I feel the saliva pooling against my tongue as I slip one arm around his waist while the other hand fumbles for the buckle. All I can smell is blood and all I can feel is pain.

“I’ll get you out,” I whisper into his hair, and when the full dead weight of Simon Snow hits my chest, I almost scream. But there’s not time.

“Just a bit further, love,” I say, grabbing him under his armpits and starting to pull.

My chest heaves as air rushes in and out. I try to breathe through my nose, but the smell is almost worse than the metallic tang I can taste in the air.

“We’re gonna get out. We’ll be okay.” The shattered windshield makes for a giant door. I pull and pull, every inch a mess of pain and tears. _A relationship measured in inches._

I want to cry and I want to drain him and I want him to be okay. My head is a mess and I can’t think.

We spill out into the grass and I collapse onto my back. I just want to close my eyes and...

_No. Not yet._

The pain catches me first. A wave of nausea crashes into me and, this time, I can’t stave it off. I vomit violently all over the long green grass.

I need to check Simon.

_No._

No, I need help first.

I paw at my back pocket and feel my phone, still there. Thank Merlin. 

But my wand…

_Where the fuck is my wand?_

No time for that. Help first. Magic can come later.

My hands are shaking as I dial.

“999, what’s your emergency? 

I’m can taste bile at the back of my throat. Everything hurts. And Simon…

“I…I’ve been in an accident.”

“What’s your location.” The woman’s voice is calm and steady. It soothes my frayed nerves, just a little.

_Fuck where are we?_

“Just one...one second. I’ll check.”

I pull up my maps ap. “We’re off highway 317. About five minutes from the turn off to Milner Ridge. Please. Please hurry.”

“What’s your name, hon?”

“Baz. Basilton Grimm-Pitch.”

“And was it just you in the car, Baz?”

“N-no.”

“How many injured?”

“Two. Myself and my boy—my Simon. He’s unconscious. I need to help”

“Are you still in the vehicle?” 

“No. We’re, um.” My hands are shaking so hard, I almost drop my mobile. “We’re in the ditch.”

“Okay. I’ve got an ambulance on its way. But right now, I need to know if you are able to help your friend. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. First you need to check for a heartbeat. Do you know how to do that?”

“I...I...” What if he doesn’t have...what if... “Yes. I know how.”

“Okay. Put me on speakerphone. I’ll talk you through this until the paramedics get there.”

“Okay.”

I put the phone down and press my hands to Simon’s neck. His long beautiful...

“Do you feel a pulse, Baz?”

I do. There it is. Thrumming underneath my fingertips. I can hear it in my ears. “Yes.”

“That’s good. Now I need to know if he’s breathing. Can you do that?” Her voice crackles against the spotty service.

“Okay.”

“Place your ear close to his mouth. Watch his chest.”

I try to hover over top of him but nearly collapse against his chest as another wave of pain rolls over me.

_I will not vomit on Simon. I will not vomit on Simon._

There’s definitely something wrong with my leg. The pain is carving me open, slicing my leg into pieces and it hurts is much...

I feel it. It’s soft, but soft slow puffs of air are warm against my cheek.

“He’s breathing.” 

“That’s good Baz. That’s really good.” 

“He’s bleeding though. There’s blood. It’s coming from his head. And maybe other places. I don’t know I don’t...”

“Baz. The ambulance is five minutes away. I need you to stay with Simon. Make sure his heart keeps beating and his lungs keep breathing. You’re doing everything you can. You’re doing great.”

I’m helpless. I’m magic-less. I’m...dizzy.

“I uh...” my voice shudders. “I think I broke my leg. And I’m...well I’m quite dizzy.”

Time is slippery.

“Four minutes Baz.”

I look down at Simon, sprawled out in the tall grass. Golden hair a halo around his bloody forehead. Eyes closed. Peaceful.

“Three minutes. Stay with me Baz.”

“Simon. Please. Stay.” 

I let my head rest against his chest. 

“Two minutes Baz.”

The rise and fall of his breathing grounds me. I don’t mean to. It’s just such a habit. I match him. Breath for breath. It keeps me calm and here and...

“Baz. Baz they should be...”

Sirens wailing. Lights flashing. People yelling. And Simon. A mess of blood and broken limbs. Together in the ditch. Breathing in and breathing out. We match.


	8. Siren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boxed wine, midnight hams, carpeted dance floors, monosyllables and hollow vowels.  
> And blue bleeding into white bleeding into blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The calm before the storm. I hope you like it <3
> 
> Forever grateful to the sweetest Arcanine, who beta'd this and answered my late-night question, "does Simon seem like the type of person who would roast a ham at a party?"

**BEFORE**

**Simon (18 years old)**

My ears. I feel like there’s cotton shoved in between my skull and everything's ringing—it’s so loud I can’t think. The world doesn’t exist outside of the hum that’s shattering my skull into a thousand little pieces.

My eyes. Fuck they’re heavy. Like a migraine came and battered me with a baseball bat, like my eyeballs are going to pop out. At first all I can see is white bleeding into blue bleeding into white. Round and round, in time with the blasts of sound cracking my brain like an egg, shells of cranium mixing with the grey matter.

Nausea bubbles up in my chest, ready to spill my stomach contents all over the place.

The pain is constant. Like the parts of me that aren’t aching all over are the exception.

But that bloody noise swallows it all.

Blue bleeds to white bleeds to blue.

My eyes. Fuck, it hurts to keep the open. Maybe I should just close them. Go back to sleep. I never sleep anymore. Not even when Baz—

_Baz!_

The memories come crashing in, violent waves against a crumbling shore.

_The car. So fast. His hand on my knee._

_“Slow down, love.”_

_I didn’t. I didn’t slow down._

_A deer in the road._

_I swerved. Fucking stupid. But I couldn’t hit it I couldn’t—_

_Upside down. Weightless._

_Pain. Glass crashing. And Baz. I think I heard him shouting for me._

My whole body reacts. I drag my eyes open. I need to find him. I need to know he’s okay. I need him.

_All my fault._

There’s something in my ears. It feels like water or blood. My whole body is heavy. It’s agony to move. I can’t see…

It’s barely an inch, but it takes all of the effort left in my ruined body.

But it’s worth it because he’s there. Sitting in the corner of this strange place ( _ambulance?)_ , blue and white casting him in profile. Baz.

The perfect lines of his face are twisted in pain ( _I did that_ ). His eyes are squeezed shut and it looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek ( _I did that too_ ). He’s white as a fucking sheet ( _I did all of this_ ). His leg is sticking out at a weird angle ( _I hurt him_ ). His hands are bloody and balled into fists ( _I broke the unbreakable vampire_ ).

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I break everything I touch.

I set it all on fire and, fuck, I’m making him burn with me.

The sirens shriek into the night and I’m right there with them. The thoughts have caught up and they’re so loud. Screaming and screaming, as I try to figure out why I keep hurting the people who are too good to love me anyway.

Why I would ever let myself hurt Baz?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

**Baz**

I held him in the hospital. Concussion, superficial abrasions.

I texted Fionna in the back of the ambulance and urged her to send for a magical doctor. The paramedics hadn’t treated me yet (I assured them I’d just twisted my ankle) (that I was fine). Simon—for all intents and purposes—is a normal, but I’m undead. The fewer syringes they poke into my body, the better.

They let me stay with him overnight (I think my father may have had something to do with that) (I honestly can’t believe he forgave me for the Jag) (I suppose, at the end of the day, he loves me more than the car) (and that is one of the warmest moments of this godforsaken night).

Simon was limp in my arms, crying silent tears into the hospital pillow, scratchy with bleach and sterility. Never looking at me. Never meeting my eyes. I kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his hands and arms and chin and every inch he would give me. Our story told in inches.

More silent tears.

I should have known it then. Should have seen it for what it was.

Simon has stopped letting me in. The door that had barely started to creep open slammed shut.

I want to break it down. Burn the whole fucking house on fire.

Force my way back into the place where he can be vulnerable and we can be okay. I wonder if he’s waiting for me to push, to act, to do something more than exist in this universe of monosyllables and hollow vowels.

**AFTER**

**Penny (25 years old)**

I knew that something was up. I knew it in my bones and there are not many things in this world I like better than being proven right.

I don’t know if it’s exposure to Simon’s magnetism for disaster or that special Spidey sense that best friends tend to have, but I knew something was off.

The evidence validating these feelings arrives via the morning post. Two days after I told Simon about Lacuna Inc. I received a package in the mail. There was no letter. No explanation. Just a simple beige envelope with and a tape, addressed to me.

I hadn’t known it would be a cassette tape, but I knew that something like this was going to happen.

I guess I could’ve tried to steal Simon’s car for a day to listen to it—he’d insisted on a cassette player when he bought the thing. It made no sense and I told him so, but Simon went ahead with it anyway.

Feels kinda serendipitous now, to be honest. Like the universe knew what it was doing. But I didn’t want to risk tipping Simon off. If he’d done what I thought he had, I couldn’t risk him hearing what was on this tape.

Eventually, I broke down and ordered a Walkman off amazon. Fucking Bezos and his online empire, but they really do have everything.

Finally, earbuds snug and tape loaded in the Walkman, I press play.

“Please state your name and who you are here to erase.”

“My name is Simon Snow. And I’m here…I’m here to erase Baz.”

“If you would like to provide a reason, feel free to do so now.” I don’t know what it is, but I hate this woman’s voice. It’s smooth but there’s not an ounce of kindness in it. I want to throttle her. Where does she get off thinking she can play with people’s memories like—

“It’s not like I hate him or anything. It’s the opposite, really.” Simon’s sniffling. I can practically see him wiping his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie.

“I love him. I’ve loved him for years. I loved him when I thought I hated him. I loved his stupid fancy hair thingers and the way he would smell.”

I can’t help it. I’m laughing even as I feel like crying. 

“I loved how he would push me like no one else. I loved being with him. I loved that he was a better boyfriend than he was an arsehole. And that sometimes he was both and I loved that too. I never stopped loving him. And I never will.”

“That’s not really a reason for erasing someone,” the woman is saying.

“S’pose. But I don’t wanna spend the last moments I’ve got talking about the bad stuff. I love that lanky fucker. Even when you take the memories, I’ll still figure out how to love him. And…yeah, I think that’s all I wanna say about it.”

“If you insist.”

I suppose it’s for the best. Simon never really got over Baz. Never dated anyone serious (man or woman) after things ended between them. And he’s been talking about someone new lately. Must’ve been after the procedure. Won’t shut up about him really. Says he’s a doctor. Says that he’s happy. It feels strange to see Simon moving on—not bad, just strange. I always thought that Baz was his endgame. Even after this…

“Oh, and please send this tape to Penelope Bunce. I’ll…um...” I hear a chair move, and then something loud hit the ground. “Sorry about that. I’ll write down her address.”

“Mr. Snow, what are you—”

“I didn’t get round to telling her about this whole erasing business. Knew she’d be mad. Knew she’d say I told you so.”

I snort through my tears. “But she always knows best. And that’s on the record. And I want her to have this. Just in case, you know?”

“No. I don’t.” Whoever the woman is, she’s becoming less and less patient by the minute. I smile. Simon can have that effect on people.

“Whatever. If you could mail this to her, that’d be great.”

There’s a resigned sigh on the other side of the tape. “As you wish.”

It’s too bad really. We’d done it on the record and everything. The I Told You So would have been epic.

The rest of the tape is static. And I let it play. 

**Simon**

I’ve got a box of wine in one hand and a fistful of my hair in the other. Both sure signs of stress.

Am I drinking red wine straight from the box? Yes. Is it four in the afternoon? Also yes. Do I give any fucks? No. Definitely not. My best friend is gonna meet my new boyfriend tonight (pretty sure he’s my boyfriend) (I should probably lock that down) and I need something to calm my nerves.

I push the plastic nozzle and let a stream of red rush into my mouth.

“You’re not going to get messy tonight?” Penny asks over her shoulder. She’s washing the floors and I don’t really understand why.

Technically, I came over to help her get the flat ready, which probably means I should stop guzzling cheap wine and start to dusting or cleaning the windows (fucking chalkboard). Truthfully, I just like to be in the flat. As much as moving out was probably for the best (Penny called it growing up) (learning to live our own lives), I miss being here; I miss her.

“Pfft,” I say, spitting a little. “I promise to be on m’best behaviour.”

“This is supposed to be a grown-up party,” she says, digging the corner of the mop into the floor and scrubbing.

“What does that even mean?” I ask, dumping the box on the coffee table and flopping onto Pen’s couch. A light cloud of chalk dust rises in a gentle plume.

_I told her. The one thing I was ever right about._

“No throwing up on the couch, for starters,” Penny says.

“That was one time!”

“And you can’t decide to roast a ham at midnight.”

“Everyone loved my ham!”

“Simon, it was a **full** ham!”

“And when it was done at like four in the morning, everyone was happy to eat it.”

“There was ham juice everywhere,” Penny says.

“Nothing delicious is without a cost, Pen.”

Penny stops, leans the mop against the wall, and stares at me. Crowley, I’m too buzzed for this.

“This is gonna be an old person party.” I hate how serious she is. “You’re introducing me to your serious boyfriend for magic’s sake—”

“I don’t know if I’d call it serious—”

“I just want a fun night where I don’t have to play beer pong—”

“I’m not even sure if he’s my boyfriend—”

“Simon, are you listening?”

“Yeah, I am.” I sigh and run a hand through my hair.

“We’re approaching thirty—”

“Speak for yourself. I’m barely halfway there.”

Penny rolls her eyes. “Accept it. We don’t bounce back like we used to.”

I open my mouth to argue, but then remember a morning a few weeks ago, curled up in a ball of pain as the shower rained down around me. I’d been nauseas and headachy and still fully dressed. And I think that I’d been all messed up over a guy…a guy who I can’t remember.

“Besides,” Penny says. “We’re supposed to have our shit together now. Careers and interesting things to say. We’re supposed to be sophisticated Si!”

I pick up the box of wine, prop it above my head, and let another stream pool in my mouth. “Speak for yourself,” I gurgle.

Penny looks at the box (almost empty) and then back at me. “Are you nervous about something?”

I lean my head over the arm of the couch. “I like him a lot. Like. So much.”

Some of the irritation drains from her face. “You’re worried!”

“No,” I mutter, throwing one arm over my face.

“You’re worried about what I’ll think!” She sounds entirely too pleased.

“You’re my best friend, of course I’m…I just…I dunno. Yeah, I guess I am.”

Penny picks up my feet, pushes them off the couch, and sits down. “So, it is serious.”

“I…” I’ve lost my words. I think it is. I want it to be. It’s a week to Christmas and Baz is going away to his family’s and yeah, we’ve got a date planned for Boxing Day, but it’s all happening so fast and I’m overwhelmed and…

“Hey?” I hear her voice, feel her hand on my knee. It steadies me like nothing else.

“Pen,” I sit up and give her my most sombre look. “It’s like I’ve known him my whole life.”

Something sad slinks onto Penny’s face—her eyebrows furrow and her mouth turns down (like it does when she gets a trivia question wrong). If I didn’t know her so well, I’d have thought I imagined it. “That’s great, Si. That’s really great. When did you tell him to come by?”

“Eight-ish.”

Penny nods. “Good.” She eyes the box of wine. “Don’t get messy, Simon.”

“I won’t,” I say, shoving her off the couch. “This is a grown-up party after all.”

…

There are people everywhere, moving between rooms in waves. Like there’s a giant magnet and we’re being tugged between poles. The house is all bubbling chatter, explosive laughter, or lounging comfort. It’s hot with all the bodies in the flat, but for once, I don’t find I care.

Shit, Penny has a lot of friends. They’re all in tight jeans or fancy button down, with messy buns and thick glasses, talking about complicated shit, like someone named Foucault who was secretly kinda sexist (a couple guys roared in outrage when Penny said that) or the effects of gut bacteria on depression (sounds weird, but food has always had a crazy impact on my mood so…) or something about murder hornets being the tangible proof of time travel.

I help kids sort their shitty lives out. It’s not exactly party conversation.

Still, my afternoon buzz has mellowed into a gentle evening hum and I’m feeling pretty good. I’ve got my nicest shirt on (grey, and Baz once said that grey looked nice on me, so I’m a little excited about it), and I’m in a pair of old blue jeans and my hair is behaving for once.

I’ve come a long way since those early days of depression and self-sabotage—back then, I could never imagine myself as looking nice. The prospect of someone liking me enough to meet my best friend probably would’ve sent me into a spiral of shitty thoughts.

_He’s too good for me. There’s no way someone like that will ever love me. He’ll eventually figure out I’m useless. He’ll leave. Because no one will even want me enough to stay._

That kind of shit.

It still creeps—Crowley, it probably always will—but therapy helped. Meds were decent for a while. The gym was a lifesaver. And hitting rock bottom…well, that scared me so badly that I had to do something. Taught me that anything I tried would be better than how I felt in that moment.

I thumb at my home button. 7:58pm.

_Fuck I’m nervous._

It’s okay. I’m fine. Everything is fine. There’s no way that Penny won’t like him. Because Baz is clever (too clever, honestly. Pen might get jealous), he’s good looking (so bloody fit that if I think about it too much, it becomes an…issue), he’s a doctor (pretentious twat) and he likes me (miracle of miracles).

…I’m pretty sure he likes me.

8:00 comes and goes.

_Still pretty sure._

And then 8:15.

_He’s just running late._

And then 8:30.

No message. No Baz.

8:45.

_Well fuck._

What was supposed to be a “grown up” party has escalated. I’m not sure if it happened when Shep got here (Pen’s major crush from work) (he’s American, but I don’t hold it against him) or when someone decided that we all needed to re-live the songs of our youth (the Backstreet Boys were back tonight, alright). But now there’s music blaring out of Penny’s cheap speakers with so much bass, I’m pretty sure the downstairs neighbours are going to start banging on the ceiling.

Maybe they already are.

It’s way too loud in here to tell.

I’ve hidden in the kitchen now that most of the crowd has started dancing in the living room.

A dance party.

In Pen’s living room.

Someone brought cards and now there’s at least twenty people playing a drinking game with strange rules I don’t understand, yelling, and so many shots. This is not the night we planned for. Not even fucking close.

Despair is licking at my heels and so I’ve come to the place where my one true comfort resides.

The kitchen. For food. Obviously.

I may or may not have raided Penny’s freezer (I know she told me not to, but there was hardly any force behind her warning) (it was probably an empty threat) (and I really want something savory). There may or may not already be a roast in the oven. She never has to know—

“Simon,” Penny says, sweeping into the room, her bright curls sticking to her forehead in a sweaty mess (was Penny dancing?) She’s looping her arm around my waist to try and steady me. “Simon, are you drunk?”

“Maybe.” That came out way more slurred than I would like.

It’s gotta be past ten by now (my phone died an hour ago) (stupid iPhone 7 and its stupid diminishing battery life). “S’fine Pen. I’m fine.”

“But your boyfriend—”

“Baz isn’t even my boyfriend—”

Her grip on my waist changes from soft to fucking iron and I squeak a bit in discomfort.

“What did you say?”

My eyes are struggling to focus

“He’snot my boyfrien—”

“Who’s not!?”

“Fucking Baz. Perfect doctor perfect person perfect arse I hate him.” The world wobbles a little and I almost topple to the floor, Penny and all.

“Oh no, Simon. No.”

“It’s fine,” I say, placing one hand on the countertop behind me. She still hasn’t noticed the roast yet, which is probably a good thing. “It was new an’ he was too good for me anyway and fuck being in love, s’all overrated bullshit.”

Penny’s eyes turn from soft and watery to determined in an instant. “Simon,” she says, grabbing me by the shoulders and looking up at me with fire in her eyes. “You know what we need?”

“What?” I say blearily. The world is going soft around the edges.

Penny’s eyes narrow in that dangerous way that usually comes before we do something stupid. “Shots.”

“Yes,” I say, slamming my hand on the countertop, trying to match her enthusiasm. “Shots!”

Penny grabs the first bottle she sees. Fucking gin. The tree drink. So fucking gross. “Simon,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me. “Why are you wearing an apron?”

“Uh…”

Things I’ve discovered tonight (other than that I’m definitely dying alone) is that shooting gin is a terrible idea.

**Baz**

When Simon invited me to meet his best-friend-in-the-universe-who-basically-kept-me-alive-and-fuck-I-love-her-more-than-life (his words), I’m not sure what I expected.

Fear and panic about being unacceptable to Simon’s found family? Yes.

An awkward social situation with a dash of inadequacy? Sure.

But Penelope Bunce?

No.

Minutes crept by and one of the doctors for the night shift continued to be “stuck in traffic.” As each patient came into triage, I found my patience thinning.

 _If you could stop seizing, if you could stop those blood vessels from bursting in your brains, if you could just force your temperature to decrease a few degrees, then I could go and see my boyfriend who I am horribly fond of that much more quickly_.

But the people just kept coming and I just kept worrying. I worried through a thousand different scenarios.

But Bunce was never featured in any of them.

As I step through the front door of the flat, the tiny entranceway is a minefield of shoes, thousands of them, piled haphazardly all over the place.

There is no way my Oxfords are mingling with these stinky things. I’ll find somewhere else to drop my coat and shoes and pick them up after everyone leaves.

Simon told me there would be board games and snacks. “I think a bunch of her friends play D&D. So maybe we’ll do that?” He’d shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. They’ll probably talk politics and pretend to be fancy. Which is why I need you.” He’d kissed my cheek then and I’d nearly combusted. “You can be all distracting and fancy too while I get eat all the food.”

This thing that I’ve walked into is not a night of board games and food.

This is…Crowley, this looks like a university house party. Except the guests are in their 20s and 30s, with slightly nicer clothing (no crop tops or shredded jeans) and drinks in clean glasses (rather than beer bottles).

The entrance opens into the living room and I scan the crowd for Simon.

“Basilton goddamn Grimm-Pitch. I didn’t think I’d ever see your pretentious face again.” She’s slurred the ts in pretentious (I never thought I’d see the day when Bunce would slur) and her curls are a navy colour now, but it’s her. Penelope Bunce has always been unmistakeable.

“Bunce,” I say, voice clipped. Under normal circumstances, I’d be excited to see her. Would spend the rest of the evening settling into an argument about the merits of The Tempest as one of Shakespeare’s great works of the ethics of memory spells. But I have a boyfriend to apologize to.

At some point during this evening, I need to make sure he’s my boyfriend.

Crowley, what have I become?

“So you’re the boyfriend he won’t shut up about!” She’s pressing one finger into my chest and smirking at me, clearly pleased with herself.

“Wait, you know Snow?”

She cackles then, like a fucking Disney villain. “Yeah. He’s my best friend Baz. Known him since I was a kid.”

“I didn’t know you bothered with friendships, Bunce. You were always more bookish than friendly.”

“Oh fuck off, I’m too drunk to try to try and have a verbal sparring match with you right now.” She’s still grinning like a madwoman and something warm and almost fond burns in my chest.

“It’s nice to see you Bunce. It’s been too long.”

“I wish I could spend the rest of the night agreeing with you, Baz. But you gotta go find Simon. He’s a bit distraught. And,” she leans in and her breath smells like booze and sugar, “he’s also had a bit of gin. My fault. Sorry.” 

“I’ll forgive you if you point me in his direction,” I say. The itch to see Simon is becoming unbearable.

“Where else would he be if he were upset?” she says and then we both speak at the same time.

“Kitchen.”

I smell him before I see him. Even above the smoke and the scent coming from the stove (why is there smoke?) Simon Snow smells like baking and sweat and heaven, and I’d know him almost anywhere.

His back is to me when I walk in and so I take a moment to stare at him, a beautiful mess, standing in the kitchen with an apron hanging haphazardly from his neck.

“Snow, are you drunk?”

He turns around so fast that he starts to wobble. Simon’s face is so expressive he’s almost a caricature made flesh. I watch surprise flow into relief which flows into embarrassment and then something that looks like shame.

“Maybe a little.” He’s bashful in his wobbles.

“Did you...” I can’t find my words. What the fuck is this man reducing me to? “Did you think that I wasn’t going to show?”

He lowers his eyes and starts to shuffle. There’s something greasy all over the front of his apron. “No.” It’s a tiny no that tells me all I need to know.

I cross the kitchen and place two fingers under his chin. “Snow.”

“Mmm.”

“Look at me.”

He has the eyes of a golden retriever and they are the dopiest things I’ve ever seen (I want to spend forever getting lost in them).

“I work in an emergency room. Sometimes handover goes late. Sometimes, I’m going to be kept back. I’m going to miss things. I’ll be that person who shows up late. Who’s the reason dinner goes cold and who fucks up reservations. I’m a terrible boyfriend, really.”

“Dating a doctor is overrated,” he mumbles. 

I ignore him. “But I will never,” I trace one finger up the side of his jaw, “walk away from you.”

Those plain blue eyes look up at me. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

“That’s a bad joke.”

“I’m a doctor. It’s on brand.” I take a deep breath, preparing myself to do something that is definitively _not_ on brand. I’m about to apologize. “Snow, I am sorry I’m late. More sorry than you know.”

“S’okay,” he says, grabbing my palm and kissing it. “Now c’mon. You need to meet Penny!”

“I already—”

“Now Baz!”

As if I could refuse him anything. “Snow. Are you cooking a roast?”

“Shhh. Don’t tell her!” he says as he leads me out of the kitchen, hand in hand.

“Why—”

“Penny!! Look! He’s here! I told you he’s real!”

**Simon**

The anxiety washes off of me and the cold feeling of his hand in mine grounds me like nothing else.

He wants to be here. He wants me. _He said the word boyfriend._

I’m stuck between mushy and horny and drunk and the gin feels like a really bad idea right now that I wish I could take back. Everything is moving too fast. There are too many people in this apartment.

Penny isn’t anywhere I can see…she’s not on the couch or playing cards…there’s no way she’d be dancing. This is a grown-up party after all—

Oh fuck.

There are at least a dozen people squished between the sofa and the TV, dancing to old music videos (why did we stop listening to boy bands. They were fucking great) and Penny…

She’s dancing with that bloke she likes from work. And they’re getting close.

I watch him wrap his hands around her waist and pull her into him.

Very very close.

Nope, not interrupting that.

Mushy, horney, and drunk all swirl around my head and I feel dizzy with it. But I know what I want.

I spin to face Baz, a little too fast, but I don’t care. Those dark eyebrows are furrowed together in confusion, the ghost of smile on his perfect mouth.

This is probably a terrible idea, will probably scare him off, embarrass him and ruin everything. He’s a doctor with the world’s cleanest car. He’s probably a shit dancer. He probably hates it. But I’m with Baz and he makes me brave, so I ask him.

“Dance with me?”

There’s something dark in the way he meets my gaze, something sinister in the smile, and I suddenly wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.

**Baz**

Carpet should never be a dance floor. 90s pop music is overproduced trash. The air is filled with smoke. And yet…

Simon Snow has his hands wrapped around my neck and his body pressed into mine and, suddenly, everything is forgiven.

He wants me. I can feel it every time he ruts into my thigh.

Simon Snow is a supernova about to go off. His gravity is drawing me in—the way that all dying stars do before they explode into the stuff of new universes. His pull is so intense that I forget how to breathe. He’s on fire and I’m going to burn.

I know that I’m flammable.

_He knows Penelope Bunce._

I know that he will be the death of me.

_But there’s no way that my golden boy can be magic. I would have felt it, would have noticed it immediately._

I know that this will end in flames

_Snow is my age; he would’ve been at Watford with me._

But I don’t care.

_Light streaming through the window of my room at the top of Mummers, dancing across his freckles, as he leaned against the doorway._

My mother would tell me to be brave.

_The memories are sticking. I’m pretty sure that I know this man._

To light a match in my heart.

_That I’ve known him most of my life._

But I can’t stop thinking, as Simon grabs my hips and pulls me into him.

_That I’ve whispered confessions to him._

How can I see the light of a match while burning in the arms of the sun?

When the fire alarm goes off, I have tears in my eyes and I don’t know why.

**Simon**

I didn’t think that anything could take me out of that moment—that inch of skin on his chest, where the buttons of his shirt aren’t quite done up, the way his breath hitches when I run my hands over him, the way his hair is falling around his face as he moves. Loose and unrestrained, like I’ve never seen him before.

And then the fire alarm goes off, and the moment shatters.

It’s like magic, as if I could cast a spell and stop time. Everyone in the living room freezes as the moan of the alarm barrels through the building. The sound is everywhere.

I look at Baz, who’s biting his bottom lip and scowling a little. _I know that face. It’s his plotting face._ His hands are still half wrapped around me, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

And then the world unfreezes and everyone burts into motion, their voices competing with the thundering din.

“What the fuck.”

“Is the building on fire.”

“What do we do?”

“Outside?”

“But it’s cold.”

“I’m gonna head home I guess?”

“I can’t find my fucking shoes.”

“I’m too drunk for this.”

We let the bodies move around us, still holding each other, not moving away or letting go.

“I guess we should go outside then?” I finally say. “You’re flammable.”

I don’t know why I say it. Feels like a reflex.

“Me and everyone else,” he answers, grinning. It all feels so familiar. “Come on Snow. It’s probably nothing. An ill-timed drill or a rogue straightening iron.”

“Big words for sober doctors,” I grumble, but let him drag me towards the entrance and out the door.

**Baz**

Everything feels surreal—rushing down the stairs, adding our laughter to the groan of the fire alarm—except for his fingers. As we skirt out of the building and into the street, I feel my undead heart start to squeeze. Simon’s sweaty and the buffoon wobbles as his bare socks squish into the dusting of snow on the sidewalk.

It’s ridiculous. We’re ridiculous. This whole night is ridiculous.

Snowflakes are falling all around us, large fluffy spectacles of condensation and wintertime. They land in his lovely golden curls, clinging to the frizz.

This much fondness shouldn’t exist in the body of one man.

I pull out my phone, scroll through my Spotify library, and hit play. My iPhone’s speakers pump a weak thready sound into the street, but with Snow this close, it’s enough.

I’m not ready for this night to be over. Even if we have to spend the rest of it in the cold.

“Come here.”

Snow wraps his arms around my neck and pulls me close. I lean into it, into him, and smell roast and cinnamon and sweat and something so uniquely Simon that it makes me dizzy. The mania of earlier has drained, the energy of the carpeted dancefloor slipping into a memory. But this—as Mazzy Star leads us into a soft sway—this is better.

That perfect fucking chin tilts up and he manages to look ready for a fight, even as his arms are draped around me. “I want you.”

_Crowley, I’m living a charmed life._

“You’ve got me, Snow.”

But as he worries his bottom lip, I know he’s not quite finished. “Tonight. I wanted to introduce you as my…”

Even as he steps on my feet, caught in a nervous shuffle and a squishy slow dance, Snow still manages to be irresistible.

“Are you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

He shrugs.

“A shrug is not a sentence, Snow.”

“Maybe I am. Would that be so bad?” _Crowley, that chin._ Always fighting. But this time, he’s fighting for me, and what a difference that makes.

He’s still looking up at me, always up. By at least three inches. “I think I’d rather like that.”

His smile should be a banned substance. “Brill.”

“I should be congratulating you. I am rather handsome, you know. And a doctor.”

“Dating a doctor fucking blows—”

I’ve got the sarcastic retort ready and loaded, but it dies on my lips.

Snow’s face goes slack.

And so does mine.

Because that’s when we hear the sirens rushing towards us, a hum that wails against the nighttime. The glimpse is coming. I can feel it as sure as I can feel the man in my arms.

_Sirens wailing. Lights flashing. People yelling. And Simon. A mess of blood and limbs. Together in the ditch. Breathing in and breathing out. We match._

Past and present crash together and there’s no denying it now. Simon. The boy I’ve been looking for, dreaming about, trying so hard to hang on to. Who I keep losing, over and over again.

It’s him.

**Simon**

His grey eyes are huge and they’re staring into me. Through me.

And then the memories come crashing in, violent waves against a crumbling shore.

_The car. So fast. His hand on my knee._

_“Slow down, love.”_

_I didn’t. I didn’t slow down._

_A deer in the road._

_I swerved. Fucking stupid. But I couldn’t hit it I couldn’t—_

_Upside down. Weightless._

_Pain. Glass crashing. And Baz. I think I heard him shouting for me._

_Baz._

_Sitting in the corner of some truck, blue and white casting him in profile. Baz._

_The perfect lines of his face are twisted in pain (I did that). His eyes are squeezed shut and it looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek (I did that too). He’s white as a fucking sheet (I did all of this). His leg is sticking out at a weird angle (I hurt him). His hands are bloody and balled into fists (I broke the unbreakable vampire)._

I know him.

Somehow…something happened…someone fucked with something…

I don’t understand it, but I’m sure.

I know him. I’ve known him my whole fucking life.

The sirens scream at us.

The way his eyes are roiling, stormy and so fucking alive, I think he knows me too. 

**Penny**

Shep leans into me and I let myself savour the way his body feels against mine.

“Are you going to tell them?” he asks, pitching his voice low so that no one will overhear.

Ever since that tape showed up in the mail, I’ve spent every spare minute at work rambling on about the memory magic. About what Baz did all those years ago and what Simon did barely a month ago. Shep knows about magic. More about America but still. It’s nice to have someone at work who knows all of me—not just one version.

“I think it’s coming back on its own.” I don’t know why I say it. Maybe because I think it’s true. Even though I have no idea—

“How?” He finishes my unspoken sentence.

“Proximity maybe. Honestly, I have no idea. But the way Simon talked about him…it was like he’d known him forever. And just now, when they heard the sirens…” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “There was a time when sirens used to send Simon into a panic. And that…well it had a lot to do with Baz.”

“We should look into it,” he says, casually slipping his fingers between mine. It’s a tiny gesture, but tiny gestures are everything.

“I am,” I mutter. “I’ve read every book I can get my hands on.”

“You find anything?”

I shake my head. “Honestly, at this point, it might just be…” I don’t even know how to put my next sentence into words. “It’s just…it’s always been Simon and Baz. For better or for worse. For their whole lives. Fighting and plotting and surviving and winning. They were enemies and then they were in love. Maybe… maybe some people aren’t meant to be erased?”

“That surprisingly un-clinical of you, Pen,” he says.

I sigh and the cold captures the moisture of my breath in tiny ice crystals. “I don’t know if I want to be right.”

There’s movement at the front of the building. The alarms stopped a few minutes ago and the firemen are finally coming down. They’ve got something round and smoking in their hands.

_If that’s what I think it is, I’m going to kill him._

“Did someone in unit 318 forget something in the oven?”

_If that’s a fucking ham—_

“It looks like it used to be a roast?”

“Simon!”


	9. Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking the wins, conjugal obligations, and monstrous words.
> 
> Up and under, before and after, the good and the bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a head's up, this chapter gets a bit explicit (had to change the rating of the fic!) There's also some mental health stuff (representations of someone in a depressive episode) throughout the chapter (careful if this is triggering for you).  
> Thank you, the ever-encouraging arcanine, for beta-ing this monster <3

**AFTER**

**Simon (25 years old)**

Three weeks. I can’t believe it’s only been three weeks.

It feels strange, being so far away from Baz on Christmas day (gotta remind myself it’s only been three weeks) (we’re not serious) (fuck). He’s spending it with his family.

“You’ve got siblings!” I practically shrieked when he told me. Baz exudes only-child vibes.

“I’ve got four, Snow.”

Tosser keeps surprising me.

I wonder what he’s doing right now. Can’t help but think about how different his Christmas is from mine. The image of Baz surrounded by little kids sends my heart into palpitations I’m not ready to have examined yet—doctor or no doctor. 

I’m sitting in my car outside of a stranger’s house. About to ask a couple of kids about someone who is hurting them.

Two very different kinds of Christmas. 

I always work this time of year. You wouldn’t really expect it, but Christmas is busy for child protection. I’ve tried to untangle the reasons in my head. Maybe it’s the pent up stress, the money that’s always extra tight around the holidays, the expectations, the family, the nerves. But late December is filled with referrals. Lots of pain, lots of bruises, lots of suicide.

We remove more kids on Christmas day than any other day of the year.

I don’t have a family. I don’t have kids to spend the holiday with. I don’t have presents under a tree or cookies to leave out for some dude in a red suit. So I always offer to work it. Maybe one day, I won’t want to. Maybe Baz…

The night on the bridge feels both simple and fucking game breaking, because I haven’t stopped thinking about him. Memories blink in and out of existence, a constant bonfire roaring underneath my every day, until a moment cracks into life, red and hot against the cool backdrop of my routine.

The way his skin feels, cool and soft, when I press my mouth to his neck. The way his hair smells, like cedar and bergamot. Wins. Tiny little miracles.

Sometimes, when I know I’m about to do something really fucking hard, I try to look back on the last few days of my life and just…take the wins? It’s something my therapist used to tell me to do. When the bad stuff started to overwhelm the ramparts, she told me to list off everything good that had happened to me.

“It should be recent,” she’d said.

“It can be as big or little as you want.”

“And it should be as specific as possible.”

I pull up in front of the small house. It’s grey and squat and I know that there are two kids in there who I have to interview.

There are a lot of hard parts of this job; working in child protection was never gonna be easy. Testifying in court is like a pizza burn on the roof of my mouth. Moving kids from one home to another is like a forty-degree day without AC. Telling parents that you’re removing their kids—that’s the seventh layer of hell.

But interviewing kids after a child protection referral is screened in? Asking them to relive their trauma, knowing that it may tear their family apart? That’s the thing I hate more than anything else.

And so I take a few minutes (something else my therapist told me to do) (to take a couple minutes to just breathe when I’m feeling overwhelmed) (to remember that my feelings don’t define me). As my fingers clench around the wheel, white knuckled and anxious, I try to count my wins.

Three weeks of doctor McSexy.

_More specific._

Three weeks of those fucking stormy eyes, looking at me like they want me.

_More recent._

Penny’s face when she realized I’d set off the fire alarm—Crowley, she hasn’t been that upset in years, but the way her face screwed up was priceless. 

_As big or little as I want._

Dancing with McSexy, sweaty and drunk and just glorious.

All wins, that I want to hold on to, cherish, keep polished and ready for when those feelings of self-loathing and helplessness come calling.

_Merlin, I hate interviewing kids._

There’d been something funny though, after all the gin, the smoke alarms, and the slow dancing.

Something that felt like a memory had crashed into my skull. I felt sure that we’d crawled through shit together in some other life and come out the other side.

I have no idea how or why. But I _knew_ him. I know him. And someone took that away. 

The part I’m not sure about is if I want to remember. If I want to know why he’s been scrubbed clean.

What if it was me? Why would I erase someone? Who the fuck is that stupid?

What if I did something? What if he didn’t want me?

_NO._

That’s a thought spiral and I’m not doing it today. Today, as I get ready to walk into that sagging little house, I’m focusing on the goddamn wins.

Baz. Baz is my win today. Baz has been my win for three fucking perfect weeks. And, for the first time in years, I’m just not gonna think about anything else.

**BEFORE**

**Baz (19 years old)**

Three weeks. It’s been three weeks.

Three weeks of weak hellos and weaker goodbyes, of smiles that don’t touch his eyes, of excuses not to sleep over. Eventually of calls going to voicemail.

Simon didn’t make it to class on Monday. There was an empty chair between the Bieber boy (Keith? I think it was Keith) (what kind of name is Keith?) and I couldn’t bring myself to close the gap. I kept waiting for him to show up, to burst through the front doors the way that he would’ve at Watford, blundering in mid-lecture with a blush on his face and a stuttering apology about how it was an end-of-the-world level emergency and he was so so sorry.

Monday was the day that the radio silence began. My phone was a sea of blue—all my messages left on read. 

Wednesday came and went. Still no Simon.

It’s Friday, and Keith has moved into Snow’s chair and I feel a surge of violence the closer he inches. “Have you heard from Simon,” he whispers.

The rational part of my mind knows that it isn’t this blathering idiot’s fault. Rational me knows that he is a concerned friend, trying to be polite, considerate even. But my nerves are fraying at the edges—fuck, there’s barely an edge left. At this point, I’m just a giant mess of holes and splinters.

Which is why I want to yell at him. _I have no idea where he is, you off-brand surfer, you person-shaped equivalent of wearing socks with sandals. I have no fucking clue how to reach him, how to make him see that I’m here and I can help, that he can give me some of the weight he’s carrying. That we can carry it together. So fuck off with your good intentions and your polite questions and your stupid fucking name, KEITH._

“He’s been under the weather,” I say instead. My voice is clipped and a bit hoarse. But it’s the best I can do right now.

“Hope he feels better soon,” Keith says, smiling at me. A wave of hair falls into his eyes and he pushes it up off his forehead. “What with exams right around the corner and all.”

As if I hadn’t thought of that. As if I weren’t panicking about that and a thousand other things. As if my boyfriend, the love of my fucking life, weren’t drowning in the sum of all of the hurts this world had levied against him. Some nasty cocktail of depression and PTSD (that’s what Bunce insisted his therapist had told him).

I’d bought out the self-help section of our local bookstore months ago. Anything vaguely mental health related, I absorbed How to help your loved one living with insert possible issues here: depression, anxiety, PTSD, grief. If he wasn’t going to talk to me, I would ensure I was prepared for every possible outcome. The pastel covers and oft-repeated motivational quotes made me bristle, but I read them anyway.

And still…three weeks later and I have no idea what to do.

**AFTER**

**Baz (25 years old)**

I’m drowning in Snow. The football pitches stretch out into the treeline, covered in a thin layer of white. In the summer, green would be reflecting the setting sun, but today, it’s just snow.

Snow.

The theme of my problems these past few weeks.

_Maybe longer._

I smother the voice in my head. Memories have been crashing around inside of my skull and they’re vengeful things—violent and insistent and so fucking _present_.

_A fist cracking against my nose and then blood. So much blood._

_Snow catapulting down the stairs, a mess of flailing limbs and ragged breathing._

_Cheeks rubbed red by the cold as Snow wobbled on his first pair of skates._

_Hands clasped beneath desks._

I’m attempting to make sense of the cacophony inside of my skull by identifying the Things I Know and the Things I Do Not.

I know that Simon Snow is a part of my past. I know I loved him (I think I still might). I know that we have a story and it stretches years, a lifetime even.

I don’t know how we lost all of that time. I have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, warning me to take this fresh start and to just run. To look forward and not ask questions. Because something deep inside of me knows that the erasure happened for a reason.

And I don’t know if I want to remember why.

Dev and Niall walk hand in hand beside me, and I can’t help but envy how effortless their affection is, how easy two held hands can be. Natural as breathing after all of these years.

The park is a serious space. It is understood. A foundational fact in our friendship. We came here before Niall took an internship in Toronto, when Dev’s Nan passed, and some weekends when we just need the air (and the company) (I suppose). In the summer, it reminds me of Watford, younger days spent bathing in the sun—

_—hoping that Snow would see me, so that I could absorb the way he studied my skin, as he waited for it to turn to dust in the sun. Joke’s on him. I can’t even tan._

Crowley, the memories are relentless.

“So,” Dev says, looking “What’s with the urgent texts?”

“I don’t think urgent is the adjective you’re looking for,” I mumble.

Dev rolls his eyes and fishes inside his coat pocket for his phone. “Park. Sunday. Be there,” he dictates.

“I’m with Dev on this one,” Niall says.

“You’re always with Dev. It’s your conjugal obligation.”

“Okay, now you’re just being bitchy,” Dev says. 

“I am not—” I start but Niall interrupts.

“What’s going on with you, Baz?”

It’s a simple question (at least it should be) but, even as the two people I trust most in the world stand ready to listen to me, I’m not sure what to say.

Perhaps, for once, I should go with the obvious.

“I think I’m in love with a man named Simon Snow.”

Dev spits out a mouthful of his Christmas themed latte. The blast radius of his surprise is painted in brown flecks on the snow in front of him.

“No fucking way—”

“Dev,” Niall says, giving him a dangerous look. “Careful.”

“How the fuck—”

“Dev!”

They know. Of course they know. If there were any two people in this world I would confide in or disclose some deeply personal secret, it’s these two idiots. I’d counted on it.

I try to keep my voice level. “Tell me what happened.”

“Baz,” Niall says, stopping in the middle of the walking path and giving me his most serious look. “You made us promise.”

“Promise what?”

“That we’d never bring him up. Ever again.”

 _I did what?_ “Well, I take it back.”

Niall is shaking his head, his face pinched. “I don’t know if you can. You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?” They’re not answering my questions and I feel like I want to hit something.

“See,” Niall says, as if this settles everything. “We shouldn’t say—”

“Say what?” My voice carries across the fields and a few heads turn our way. I’m disturbing their Sunday and their peace.

“You erased him, dude.” Dev isn’t yelling. His ruddy face is calm and…sad?

_I did this? There’s no way…I wouldn’t…_

“DEV! You fucking idiot.” Niall’s face is going to match his hair soon enough. 

“Why?” I whisper.

Dev dumps his coffee in a bin and wraps one arm around my shoulders (he’s shorter than me, so his arm dangles closer to my rib cage). “Look, you’ve been down this road before. Are you sure you wanna go back?”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation. There should be. I know there should be. The tiny part of me that roots for self preservation is screeching. But I’ve never been able to resist him. I’d cross every line. Again and again. Whether I remember doing it or not. 

“Well, maybe you should ask him,” Niall says, readjusting his yellow scarf. (It clashes horribly with his hair).

I nod, trying to get a grip on my feelings. I’d come here for confirmation. And now I have it.

“Now,” Dev says, turning to his husband, looking positively smug. “Pay up.”

“Fuck,” Niall says, rolling his eyes and digging into his coat pocket. “I can’t believe you remembered.”

Dev’s grin is pure trouble. “This bet’s seven years old, but I knew I was right.”

“About what?” I ask, lost somewhere between shared memories. “Wait, seven years!”

“I knew there was no way you would ever forget Snow,” Dev says, giving my shoulder a light punch. “Everything’s about Snow.”

Niall sighs and passes Dev a fifty pound note.

“You’re married. I fail to see the point of these semantics.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Dev says.

“You bet against my memory loss!”

“Hey,” Dev says, pressing his nose to the bill. “Smell that? It’s the smell of victory.”

“It’s grossly unhygienic.”

Dev’s undeterred. “No. It’s more than that! It’s the smell of true friendship. I know you, Basilton. Better than you know yourself.”

“You seeing him soon?” Niall asks. The words leave marks behind—concern twists in his brows, uncertainty runs deep in his frown lines. 

“Tonight,” I say.

“Okay, so this shit hits the fan soon?”

“What do you—”

“Nothing,” Niall interrupts. “Dev, quit meddling.”

Dev’s frown is clown shaped, a giant pout that he only uses on Niall. “Hey, just wanna be ready for the shit show—”

“DEV!” Niall elbows him in the ribs and turns to me. “What are you doing tonight? Fancy date?”

“I’m cooking for him,” I say, unsure how I’m meant to respond to all this. 

“Make double,” Dev says, rubbing his ribs through his tweed coat—Niall’s elbows are deadly sharp.

“Of what?” _How much do they know about him?_

“Whatever you planned to cook. That guy eats like a horse.”

“How do you know—”

“Like I said, it’s best you ask him yourself.”

**BEFORE**

**Simon (18 years old)**

I’m drowning.

_Under_

All of the air has been sucked out of me, every tiny thing that made me feel like I could breathe in this impossible place is gone (Baz’s eyebrows, Penny’s Sunday brunch, school and all the freedom uni was supposed to bring, signing at the top of my lungs until my throat hurt from it, the sky and the way Baz traces it on my skin).

My lungs have been flooded with…nothing. Just. Nothing.

It would hurt if I could make myself care enough to think about it.

Highlight of my week: rolling into the shower and turning the water on blast. Letting the hot bear down on me. I didn’t have to move or think or pretend that I was okay. Everything in my life could just fade away. All I had to pay attention to was the way the hot water hit my face, crept down my neck and over my shoulders, scalded my skin and left me rouge.

It hurt. It boiled the nastiness inside me, made tea of guilt and the fucking shame, and then let the feelings steep.

I haven’t cried. Not since that night with the car and the hospital. When I let some of this fucking poison out into the world and it almost ruined the only thing in my life worth having.

_A cool hand on my knee._

_“Slow down, love.”_

_And I didn’t._

_I didn’t fucking slow down._

A thousand assurances that it was alright (they made it worse). The sincerity in those endless grey eyes (I don’t deserve it). The feeling of cool arms holding me in the middle of the night on a tiny hospital bed, limbs tangled and desperate. _Let me have this one night. Let me have Baz for just one more night…_

Too good. He’s too fucking good.

And I’m not.

_Up_

“…Baz, he’s stopped eating…”

“…you don’t understand. Simon always eats…”

“…yeah, I left the cherry scones outside the door…how did you even get the recipe…”

“…no, he didn’t touch them…”

“…no, he hasn’t talked to me…”

“…I’m scared…”

_Under_

My body has melded with my mattress. I remember being hungry, but I don’t remember doing anything about it and now, I don’t find I care.

_Up_

Pen’s violently purple hair (she changed it again) is extra bright under the overhead light of the kitchen. She’s got a bowl of rice poised directly above her mouth, and she’s shovelling it in with chopsticks. She’s always approached sticky rice with the gusto of a sandworm.

“Pen.” My voice feels hoarse. Like I’ve forgotten how to use it.

Porcelain hits the floor and shatters. Sticky rice hits the cheap grey tile and her chopsticks scatter.

“Simon!” She’s launching herself at me, leaping over the mess and throwing her arms around my middle.

“Ooh,” I say as all of the air leaves my body. Her arms are squeezing me until I can barely breathe, but this time, I think I want this feeling. A tiny bit of pain from someone I love. Because she wants to see me. Because she’s good and bright and… 

“Hey Pen,” I whisper, still more gravel than tenor. I pat the top of her head. “Sorry I’ve been…” I struggle for the right words. The world is suddenly overwhelming and I’m afraid and I just want to go back into my fucking room and why did I even bother—

“You’ve been away. But that’s okay. I’m not letting you go.”

Oh. Okay.

_Up, still up_

The carcases of greasy take out, slimy pizza and slimier fried rice, of chicken wings and curry, pop bottles and Styrofoam planet killers, are strewn across our living room.

Doctor Who (modern Who, David Tennant) is cycling, episode after episode. There are worse places to escape to, I suppose. Different versions of earth, future tragedies, alien worlds, a surprising amount of Edwardian England…yeah, it could be worse.

Penny is curled up next to me, eyes shuttered, snoring gently (we’ve been up all night) (I think) (I’ve kinda lost my sense of time). Her glasses are askew and starting to leave an imprint on the side of her nose. I gently pluck them off her face, fold them up, and set them on the coffee table.

It’s been two days and Penny has been true to her word—she’s been stuck to me ever since I emerged from the bedroom. _Still above water. Still breathing._

We’ve buried ourselves in grease and I feel something that was almost laughter somewhere in my chest. Not ready to come out—the muscles in my face feel slack and underused, totally unable to create shapes needed for a smile. But it’s still there. Under the surface.

I need to see Baz.

It’s been hanging in the air, the certainty of it settling in my chest, the unspoken question that creeps onto Penny’s face between episodes. Baz. I need to talk to him. _I need to tell him._

Even now, as my passive thoughts skirt around the idea, I feel the new mountains of food in my stomach start to turn. _You need to let him go._

I’m as present now as I’ve been in days…weeks…I honestly don’t know. I need to find him before I go under again. In a pathetic attempt to be fair to him. To be honest and present enough to make sure that he knows that I’m no good. And that I can’t keep making him carry me.

Penny’s still snoring on the sofa as I slip on my trainers. My hair is a nest of tangles and my t shirt hangs loose on my shoulders, but I’ve gotten this far.

It’s not flipflops this time. That’s a start.

Let’s just get the fuck out of this room. Let’s go find Baz.

I lock the deadbolt behind me.

**AFTER**

**Simon (25 years old)**

The air is chilly on this December afternoon. Even as I stand outside of his front door, my gloved hand rapping against solid wood, I can smell something divine. It’s mouthwatering. It’s transcendent. Crowley, his flat smells good. The air in his apartment is filled with the warmth of an oven and the aroma of a full day of marinade in the tender care of low heat.

I’ve died. It’s the only explanation. I’ve died and this is the afterlife and I can let the gentle tickle of sage and cumin and cinnamon, of gravy, and butter and…

_…I’m going to eat everything._

I look up as I push through the front door and immediately realize I have misplaced my priorities. 

_I’m going to eat him._

Baz should not be allowed to wear jeans (fucking tight jeans, dark and clinging like I wish I was right now). And that messy fucking bun (there’s some flour streaking his dark hair and my god, if I didn’t want to eat him before...) is something I didn’t know I needed in my life and that I will now never be happy without.

“You…” I don’t know if I’m stuttering because I’m nervous or because the fucker literally took my breath away. “You’re in jeans!”

Whichever reason, Baz seems pleased. “Like what you see, Snow?” That fucking eyebrow is looking down at me. I’m going to kiss the smirk off his face. I’m going to do more than that. I’m going to…

“Uh, yeah.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says, turning back towards the kitchen. “Drink?”

“You cooked for me,” I blurt.

That fucking eyebrow, I swear to all that is unholy.

“Did you think me incapable of cooking?”

“I…”

“I’m good at everything, Snow. Naturally gifted.”

“Wanker.”

“Insulting your host?” He’s waving a wooden spoon at me and I think it’s turning me on. “I won’t feed you if you keep that up.”

If he was serious, I’m sure I’d shed real tears. Crowley, the way this place smells, I’d have good reason.

“My mouth is watering.”

“That was the idea.”

“I hope you made extra.”

“Double what I initially planned. On the advice of a friend.”

“Sounds like me and this friend would get on.”

“Something like that.”

I’m overstimulated. The smells, Baz’s arse in those fucking jeans. The smell of roast beef. Oh Crowley, the pot of mashed potatoes. It’s too much. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy. I’m drowning in it. In something so simple as a dinner date with my boyfriend. A win. A miracle. A good fucking day.

**BEFORE**

**Simon (18 years old)**

The air is chilly for an April afternoon. The subway was packed, bodies crushing into me and, fuck, every time someone grazed my skin, I felt nauseous. I try to breathe. Baz would count me off (In 2-3-4, hold 2-3-4, out 2-3-4-5-6. That’s it Snow. Just like that.) I nearly cry when I’m back above ground.

Someone just cut the grass on the quad and I think it might be my favourite smell in the world (except for cedar. Or maybe bergamot.)

Baz’ll have just gotten out of…English, I think. _Crowley, I’ve missed a lot of class._

_I missed class._

_I’m gonna fail._

_I’ll drop out of university. And everyone will have been right._

_Worst chosen one ever chosen._

_Just the worst._

_Can’t even manage being normal._

No. No no no. I’m not spiraling. Not now. Now when I’ve been above water long enough to get out here. To find Baz. To tell him.

_The car. So fast. His hand on my knee._

_“Slow down love.”_

_I didn’t. I didn’t slow down._

Guilt is shackled to me, tangled in my feet, tripping me up. I can almost feel the metal links, embedded in my tissue, twisting around my veins as they pump the shame back up into the chambers of my heart. It’s so heavy.

_Cotton in my ears, white bleeding into blue bleeding into white._

_Blood. Baz. Broken._

_I did that._

My feet are still moving, caught up in the tides of students drifting between classes. Wandering towards the fountain where all of this started, in tandem with dozens of other kids. There’s someone there, with dark hair, next to two blokes sitting on the ledge watching the water.

My eyes can’t see the details yet, but I’d know Baz anywhere. He’s the one subject I’m an expert in.

His back is to me. He hasn’t seen me yet.

Crowley, he looks good. That’s the worst fucking part of all this. I still want him, even if it feels like I’m at the bottom of a pit and he’s somewhere a million miles up, drowning and ashamed and so fucking guilty. He’s so out of reach I can’t even think about it properly. Even though I can’t have him (I can’t, I just can’t) I fucking _want_ him.

The bastard has no business looking like that. He was born for this, like he emerged from the womb in black loafers and a messy bun. 

But his shoulders are tense. I can see it in the way he’s holding himself, in how he’s straighter than usual, more square.

The part of me that wants to push my thumbs into the knots I know are in his neck is almost gone. Drowning in that pit somewhere.

I want to close the distance but I’m so goddamn scared.

“Baz, Snow didn’t show for our soc exam.”

My head lifts at the sound of my name.

“No?” Baz’s voice is level. He doesn’t know I’m here. I shouldn’t be listening to this. I should go.

“Nope. It was a 30% final. Kinda fucked to miss it.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons.”

“Used to being the chosen one probably.”

Silence.

“Seriously though, how often did Snow get away with this kinda shit? He could barely cast a basic spell. But did anyone care?”

“C’mon Dev, don’t be a dick.”

“I’m not. Like, he’s a decent bloke. I like the guy. But it’s just…true. Mage’s heir got away with everything.”

“To be fair, he had a lot going on,” Niall says.

“Well, not anymore.”

The words bounce around in my skull. My brain has been turned to needles. All memories and blood.

“This is the real world now. No fascist maniac to step in when he disappears for weeks at a time. Do you remember back in fourth year—”

“Dev,” Niall says. “Not now.”

_I’m such an idiot. To think that I needed to try to leave him. What a fucking joke. I should’ve known. Should’ve known better._

Self-loathing is a bitter pill going down. I can feel it seep into everything. I’m drowning in it.

Because Baz is just standing there.

_He knows. I’m worthless without magic. No one needs me. No one wants me. I’m just a fucking normal and he’s the smartest mage I’ve ever met. And for a while, I could pretend I was good enough. But he knows he knows he knows._

The spiral is a whirlpool pulling at my ankles, dragging me down. 

I need this to be over. I need him to be gone. I’m angry and crying and I want him and I want him to go and I’m drowning.

I need to go. I need to go right now.

**Baz**

“Baz, I need you to come over. Like now.” I have started to know Penelope Bunce. I know that, in this moment, she is not okay.

“I’ve been over almost every day this week, Bunce. He’s not gonna open that door.” It’s true and I don’t know how much more my heart can take.

 _My heart can take as much as he needs._ The answer scares me, but I know that I will wait for Simon as long as he’ll have me.

“Well, then maybe it’s time you broke it down.”

**AFTER AND BEFORE**

**Baz**

Double was not enough. I let my brain squirrel away tiny details to worry about later (he didn’t eat the carrots with as much vigour as the potatoes) (he drank almost a litre of gravy) (I’m going to overdose this man on sodium) (or maybe just potatoes). But I’m not thinking about that now.

No. Right now, I am now cherishing new knowledge I have acquired: if I cook for Simon Snow, as soon as the last bite of food has disappeared from his plate, he will maul me, crash his mouth into mine, push me against the edge of the countertop until my lower back aches. This is valuable information. That I plan to exploit at every available opportunity.

But right now, he’s kissing me like I’m the last Yorkshire pudding and with the force of someone willing to fight for it.

Snow kicks open my bedroom door (I try not to flinch) (I don’t have to try very hard) (Snow is very distracting).

I’m desperate to touch him. His mouth is soft and his tongue tastes like butter but it’s not enough.

My hands itch. I slip my finger up and under his polo (“a collared shirt? Did you try and dress nice just for me, Snow?”). He’d growled then and he’s growling now. But this time, the sound goes straight to my cock.

I fucking shiver. It’s good. Everything is too fucking good.

“Are you nervous?”

“No.” I let the lie slip through my lips.

“Are you sure?” he says, tracing one finger down my neck. I can feel him pressing against the soft muscle as I swallow.

“Not nervous,” I pant.

His fingers slip into my buttons, gently prying them open, exposing inch after inch of skin. “I’m going to take this off.”

“Please.”

I’ve been reduced to monosyllables.

He lowers his mouth to me, lips branding my cool skin, open mouthed and wet. And still, his hands slip lower and lower, button after button, until he’s on his knees and my shirt is hanging loose on my shoulders.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says, looking up at me.

 _I want_. The image of Snow on his knees. _I want_. His mouth hanging open as he looks up at me. _I want_. The cramped feeling of my cock against my jeans. _I want I want I want._

“I’m not…”

Snow kisses the bulge in my jeans and I choke on my words. “Sn...Snow—

_—“Snow?”_

_“Baz. Baz get up.”_

_His voice is breathy against my ear, rumbling sweet nothings into my sleepy skull._

_“No.” I’m barely aware of my voice. It’s borderline primitive. “Snow no.”_

_“It’s your birthday.”_

_“I’m well aware. Now let me sleep in.”_

_“Baz. C’mon.”_

_Hands move across my chest, rubbing circles into my stomach, gentle fingers grazing the skin under the elastic of my pants._

_“Stop being a tease, Snow. It’s criminal.”_

_“Baz.” His lips kiss my earlobe and I can feel the vibration of his voice. “Please, love. It’s your birthday and I want to watch the sun rise with you.”_

_Crowley. I can never say no to this boy._

_“I’m going to sand down your eyelids.”_

_“Mmm. Empty threat. Then I’d never sleep. And neither would you.”_

_His fingers trace the outline of my cock. Gentle. As if by accident._

_“I’m going to do terrible things to you today, Snow.”_

_“It’s your birthday. Of course you are Baz—_

—“Baz?” Simon is still on his knees, his hands on the button of my jeans. “Do you still want…”

“Fuck. Yes. Snow, always.”

I hear my zipper come undone, feel his fingers sneaking under elastic. He’s hooked his thumbs under everything, pulling it down, down, down. I’m standing here, hard and leaking and exposed and…Crowley, I can feel his breath (my knees are shaking) (his mouth is so close). I’m going to make him pay for this, going to christen every surface of this flat—

— _Snow’s flat was never anything out of the ordinary. He’s way out, in a run-down building eons from campus. His room is too small, just a bed and a pile of clothes that doubles as a chez. The balcony though—that’s my favourite part of this place. And it seems that Snow is well aware._

_He’s holding my hand, fingers laced between mine, thumb rubbing casual circles into my palm, as if touching me is a reflex._

_He’s dragged the couch cushions out onto the cement landing, has piled the patio with every spare blanket and pillow in the place. There’s a cup of tea (with two sugars in it, I’d wager) sitting on the small glass table._

_The bastard planned this._

_“Hurry, don’t wanna miss it.”_

_And suddenly, neither do I._

_Snow settles onto the nest he’s made up and drags me down next to him._

_“One of the perks of not sleeping,” Snow says, as he pulls me into him. I settle in between his legs and lean my head against his chest. “Is that you get to see this every morning.”_

_He’s looking at me and he’s_ here _. Really here. There are dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks look a bit hollow. But he’s present and alive and I feel like I’m catching a rare glimpse of the boy who I used to know._

_“I can’t believe you woke me at six am on my birthday. It’s cruel. A low blow. Even for you.”_

_“Shhh,” he hums, and I can feel the way the air moves out of his chest. Rising and falling. “Look.”_

_Snow’s fingers slip into my hair, teasing it, massaging my skull, as I stare up at the horizon._

_I don’t usually pay much attention to the sky. I’m not a star gazer (unless you count a constellation of moles), have never been the type to get up early and watch the sun climb into the world._

_Maybe that’s why it knocks me off kilter. The corner of light bursts into the subtle blue, warmth filters through the clouds, setting the world on fire and igniting pale yellows, soft oranges, and a plain blue that I know I’ve seen before._

_More time brings more light, glancing off the tall glass buildings, dancing around concrete monsters, reminding the world that, yes, there is warmth and life and something better coming._

_His smell is around me, his hands are in my hair, his chest is rising up and down, his body is hot against the dewy chill. He’s everywhere and he’s mine._

_I lean up and look into those plain blue eyes. “Simon?”_

_Shock first, then a grin so easy and soft that I almost can’t believe that it’s for me. “Yeah?”_

_“I…”_

I love you.

_“This is lovely.”_

_“So are you. And you called me Simon.”_

_“No I didn’t.”_

_“Yes you did. A birthday present for me. You shouldn’t have.”_

_“I didn’t.”_

_“Sure, Baz..._ _”_

_I shut him up with my mouth—_

_—_ his mouth is wrapped around me, hot and wet, and _Crowley I can’t think._ My fingers slip into his hair, needing something to hold on to, to keep me here, in this moment. Simon’s tongue rolls across the tip of my cock and I nearly collapse into the bed. My breaths are a sinful expression of my desperation. I’m slipping in between here and there, now and then, and it’s hot and my heart and it hurts and…

“Snow,” I whisper. It’s half a curse, half a prayer.

He hums in answer and it sends a wave of pleasure through me. I can feel his spit slick and leaking all over me, his hands are rubbing my calves. I can’t. It’s too much it’s—

_—it’s too much. Words babble like running water. A stream of “Fuck oh god fuck more yes, please baz, fuck don’t stop don’t.” He’s raw and falling apart._

_The whole bathroom is filled with steam. Snow’s single shampoo bottle (“it’s all in one Baz! Good for everything”) has fallen onto the bottom of the tub and he’s got a handful of shower curtain clutched in his fist. Normally, I would chastise him on the importance of not tearing apart his possessions (Bunce will skin you alive, Snow), but right now, I don’t care._

_I don’t care because I have Simon Snow half bent, with his head against the wall, clinging to the shower curtain for dear life, because he’s hard in my hand and I’m going to touch him until he falls apart._

_The water is scalding (he knows that’s how I like it) and Snow must be dying from the steam and the heat. But none of that seems to matter, because his shoulders are tense and words are falling from his lips and I know. I know he’s close._

_I press my mouth against his ear. “I want you to come for me.”_

_“Fuuuuck.”_

_The pace I’ve set is unrelenting (how Snow likes it) and I’m stroking him, faster, and then faster, until he finally yanks the shower curtain off its hooks. Water is spraying everywhere, but it doesn’t matter because_

_“Baz I’m going to—_

—Snow. I’m going to. I’m…

He doesn’t slow down, he doesn’t let me go. He grabs my hips and—

_—The room is dark when I enter the flat. I know he’s here though. I can hear his heartbeat. Can smell him, still filled with smoke even without all that magic, and something sweeter like cinnamon and pine trees._

_There’s something else there too though. Cold sweat. Panic. Rushed breathing._

_“Simon!—_

—“Snow!”

I’m falling apart. I can’t think. I’m coming down the back of his throat and he’s letting me and it’s blinding and release and I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt so good and—

_—The kitchen is empty. No dishes in the sink or any other telltale signs of the disaster (who also happens to be fond of baking) who lives here. There’s a thin layer of chalk dust clinging to everything, but that’s the norm._

_I head straight for his room. I don’t need to look around the flat to know that’s where I’ll find him._

_The thick wooden door is shut. A drawbridge that’s closed up tight. A threshold I desperately want to cross. An ending. Even if I don’t know it yet—_

—Strong hands push me down onto my mattress. I feel the down comforter fold around my body as I collapse onto my back. His mouth follows me, kissing up the inside of my thigh (I’m shivering), tracing the line of my pelvis (I thrust my hips up and I can’t help it), moving up my stomach (I moan into the half dark).

I want I want I…

I grab the collar of his shirt (why is he still dressed?) and pull his mouth to mine. It’s desperate, all teeth and lust and want want want. But he’s there with me. We push and pull, rise to meet each other. We give and we fight and we match—

_—“Simon!”_

_My voice is willowy and filled with more emotion than I’ve ever allowed. There isn’t time for restraint right now._

_“Open this door. Right now.”_

_Silence._

_“Simon, please.”_

_Silence._

_“Please don’t make me break it down.”_

_I’ve never hated silence so much. I want to fill it with every ounce of feeling that is roiling inside of me. I want to scream at it. To make it understand that I need more than this void of nothing that he’s refusing to give me._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_I don’t usually use the strength buried inside of me. I don’t need to be a vampire most days. But tonight…_

_I thrust my shoulder into my boyfriend’s door and tear thick white wood from its hinges—_

—The memories keep coming. They’re flooding in and I can’t control it. I know I should stop. Let the feelings catch up. Try to parse apart the thousand tiny needles, the internal wounds, all memories and blood.

But it’s hard to feel the pains of the past when I’m laying underneath the fucking sun. I tear his t-shirt up and over his broad shoulders and bask in the glory of Simon Snow’s bare chest.

My fingers trace patterns into his skin, carving star paths into a warm sky.

“Everything else. Off. Please.”

The bastard has a grin that is too pleased with itself, but I don’t have the energy to chastise him because he’s taking off the rest of his clothes and I need to feel him against me, on top of me, inside me—

_—I expected him to be angry. To be startled. To be something._

_But I was wrong._

_As the hundred-year-old door collapses onto the ground, he looks up. But he doesn’t say anything._

_“Simon. I need to understand what’s going on.”_

_“Do you?” he says, and there’s something dangerous there. Taught. Coiled. Tense._

_“Yes!” My voice is strangled with all of the emotions that I wish I didn’t have to have right now. “I need you to let me in.”_

_“Is that what you want?”_

_I take a step closer. “Yes. It’s what I’ve always wanted. Since I was fifteen fucking years old.” I’m so angry and so fucking scared. I’m starting to lose the thread._

_“I’m not what I used to be, Baz,” he says, his voice still even. Cold. So unlike Simon._

_“I don’t care.”_

_“No, you don’t seem to care.”_

_I flinch. The words feel like a punch. A slap. Is this how we’re fighting now?_

_“How could you say that?”_

_“I heard Dev and Niall. I came to find you. When I felt like I was drowning, I came looking for you. And I found you standing there, while your friends called me useless—”_

_“—No, Simon—”_

_“—said that I was only ever good for anything when I was a bomb—“_

_“—that’s not true—“_

_“—When I could go off and save the world—“_

_“—Simon, stop. Please—”_

_“—that’s the only reason anyone ever wanted me—“_

_“I want you. Now. As you are.”_

_He snarls at me. His lip curls and, Crowley, I wonder if this is how Simon used to see me. No wonder he thought I was a monster. It makes him look ugly. “You’ve been waiting. Waiting for me to fix myself. To get better. To be that boy you used to know. Well guess what?”_

_I stand there, a few feet away but miles apart._

_“He’s not coming back. I’m never gonna be your fucking chosen one. This,” he looks around the dark room, points at the broken door and the mess of clothes, “this is all there’s ever gonna be, Baz. So get the fuck out.”_

_I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t speak._

_(I do the only thing I can think of. I take a step closer.)_

_His eyes follow my every movement. “Get. The fuck. Out.”_

_“No.”_

_Why is this boy able to reduce me to monosyllables?_

_(I take another step.)_

_“You’re a fucking monster.”_

_He’s saying every mean thing there is. Launching the words like projectiles, aimed at taking me down before I get too close._

_I know this game. It used to be mine._

_(I’m nearly there.)_

_“I don’t want you.”_

_“I never wanted you,” he says._

_“What?—_

—Simon is slotted between my legs, miles of bare skin sending my body into an impossible state of bliss wherever we touch. I feel him, hard and so fucking warm, as he moves against me, pressing me further into the blankets. Cold meets hot, and I hear him sigh. It’s low and needy and mine.

He’s kissing me everywhere. My chest, my neck, my cheeks.

“Baz you’re crying.”

“Not now, Snow,” I say, letting all of my feelings, all of the desire that’s pooled up inside of me for god knows how long show all over my face.

I want this. I want him—

_—“I don’t want you.”_

_I stop._

_“How could someone like you. A fucking dark creature. Ever fix me?”_

_I always thought that heartbreak was a manufactured trope for overproduced romantic films. I didn’t think it was real._

_I was wrong._

_“Why are you—”_

_“You were never enough.”_

_It’s the lowest blow and it hurts so much more. Because it’s coming from him. “Simon.”_

_I’m standing there, my hand frozen in space and time and I can feel my world falling apart. His words are violent waves against a crumbling shore_

_“Get. Out.”_

_I take one last look at his face. Hoping to see anything on it. A glimpse. Just give me one glimpse. Of something more than this night._

_But his jaw is firm. Fighting stance. But not for me. And what a difference that makes. His chin jutted out. The way that I love. The way that I can’t have._

_Because he’s right._

_I’m not enough._

_I’ll never be enough._

_I don’t know why I ever thought I was—_

—“Jesus fucking Christ,” Simon breathes. He’s pulled off of me, and is leaning on one elbow, staring into space.

I’m frozen. Tears are flooding my face. His golden curls are tickling my chin.

He looks up and me, eyes still filled with want, but confusion too. “I think I remembered something? Does that make sense?” he says, looking at me for some kind of explanation.

Fuck Dev. Fuck Niall. Fuck all of this. They thought that he would have the answers. But the look on his face isn’t of someone who understands what’s happening to him.

He’s just as lost as I am.

“I need to go.”

“Baz?”

Something ragged is tearing through me. It’s almost like I can feel where my life was shorn into two pieces. Once before Simon and once after I had him erased.

“I can’t do this right now. I need to go.”

I slip off the bed. Let my feet hit the floor.

“But it’s…it’s your flat.”

“You can let yourself out.”

“But where are you going?”

“For a walk,” I mutter, pulling my jeans back on.

“In the middle of the night.”

“I’m a fucking vampire. A dark creature? Right? It’s what I do.”

“Baz.”

But I’m past a place where I can listen. I just need the night and the air and I need to get away from Simon Snow.


	10. Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sailor Moon pajamas, boomboxes, the spectacle of a grand gesture, Marvin fucking Gaye, the importance of time, and the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've come this far, thank you so much <3  
> One musical note: if you have the track Ain't No Mountain High Enough at the ready, it may improve the experience of this chapter. I think you'll know when ;) 
> 
> To the fabulous arcanine, thank you. For beta-ing another lengthy chapter and being persistent in your reassurance.

**BEFORE**

**Baz (19 years old)**

I always knew it would end in flames. That I would get too close. That I would burn. He was always telling me I’m flammable.

He was right. First time for everything, I suppose. It’s fine. He’ll never know.

Good thing vampires can still cry. I’d have burned to death otherwise.

My phone is glowing blue in the dark.

_Block this Caller_

I feel the unspoken question mark hovering over the end of this unpunctuated option; I let my finger drift over the words.

My thoughts are vicious things, intruding on the sanity that I’m trying to rebuild from the wreckage of my apocalypse. _He might still try to reach out. To apologize. To make it right._

I want to cling to these feelings, of hope and possibility and the fiction that last night was just one big outtake in the drama that is my life. There’s solace in self-delusion.

But I know he won’t. His face, the way it twisted when he launched those words at me. I wonder if he knew they would hit with the force of a nuclear bomb? I wonder if he’s feeling even a fraction of the violence that is churning inside my chest.

_No, he’s not. Because you’re not enough._

As he slung insults at me, I’d thought the vampire slur would sting most. (I remember fifth year. I remember pressing my lips to the rank fur of a rat and the relief that swept through me as the blood touched my tongue. And the subsequent disgust with what I was. What I am. I remember throwing Snow into the fountain.) It always has before.

But no.

_You were never enough._

Somehow, it’s these four words that have laid waste to my heart.

I know I’ll never be rid of him. I’ll carry the radiation of Simon bloody Snow in my cells for the rest of my pathetic life. That beautiful man went off, one last time. Even without magic, outside of a final battle with wands and swords, he still managed to destroy me.

I press my thumb down on the screen.

There is not much about this that I can control. I can’t rewrite his words. I can’t change the way the chambers of my heart swelled and then popped like an overblown balloon. I can’t even make myself hate him.

But I can give myself this. Just in case.

Silence. 

**Simon (18 years old)**

Messages undelivered to recipient

**Simon (3:55 pm): I was awful. Im sorry.**

**Simon (4:23 pm): Your fucking amazing and you deserve better**

**Simon (8:12 pm): Im gonna try to leave you alone. Cause you dont need this.**

**Simon (8:15 pm): Just know that im so fucking sorry and that I hope your happy**

**Simon (8:17 pm): I really really hope your happy.**

**Simon (12:19 am): Im walking. I wish you were with me.**

**Simon (12:24 am): I know its dumb to say or think or whatever. espesially after how I lost my shit. but I dont think Ill ever find someone else like you.**

**Simon (12:26 am): there isnt anyone else like you.**

**Simon (12:28 am): you need to know that. your ruthless and the smartest fucker in every room. your impossibly fit and secrely kind.**

**Simon (12:30 am): fuck your so kind baz. I never thought id ever say something like that to you. and I didnt tell you that enough**

**Simon (12: 45 am): I was really lucky to have you**

**Simon (1:47 am): I dont want you to answer.**

**Simon (1:49 am): I want you to get away from all this.**

**Simon (1:52 am): im a mess. your not. your just…your good**

**Simon (1:54 am): can you believe im saying that?? all those years I thought you were plotting**

**Simon (1:56 am): what a fucking waste**

**Simon (2:15 am): i wish id known. Before all of this. befoe the humdrum and ebb**

**Simon (2:17 am): fuck im thinking to small. Imagine if id had you since the beginning**

**Simon (2:19 am): if wed listened to the stupdi crucible form the beignng**

**Simon (2:21 am): you woulda been fucking wicked in battle baz**

**Simon (2:23 am): vampire strength and those fangs**

**Simon (2:24 am): fucking wicked**

**Simon (3:13 am): what im trying to say is that i wish we figured it out sooner**

**Simon (3:18 am): cause maybe then we couldve taken things on together**

**Simon (3:21 am): maybe everyone couldve lived**

**Simon (4:15 am): and I couldve spent all those years kissing you instead of fighting you**

**Simon (4:18 am): couldve snogged that fucking sneer right off your face**

**Simon (4:20 am): its all too late now**

**Simon (4:21 am): but baz**

**Simon (4:21 am): i need you to know Im sorry**

**Simon (4:22 am): even if you never answer**

**Simon (4:22 am): i need you to know**

**Simon (4:23 am): that your it for me**

**Simon (4:23 am): you always were**

**AFTER**

**Simon (25 years old)**

My head is pounding, my heart is racing, and I’m so fucking confused. I don’t know if I want to run or disappear.

Memories are crashing into my head and they won’t fucking stop. And Baz is gone. And I think he remembered too.

 _He remembered._

Crowley, I had no idea I could be so pathetic and so awful all at once. That I could so effectively chase away the best part of my fucking life.

I sat there for a long time, still naked on his gigantic bed, halfway between horny and hating myself, and I didn’t know what to do. So, I did what I always do when I’m feeling like I’ve lost my grip on the world.

I found Penny.

“Wait, tell me that again, but slower.”

Penny sits cross legged in her Sailor Moon pajamas, eyes wide. Her navy curls are damp (I didn’t exactly let her know I was coming and she was mid shower) and are well on their way to full frizz. She’s looking at me like she looks at her books or the Sunday crossword: like she wants to fit every piece of this puzzle into place.

“I…I know Baz, Pen. I know him. I think I’ve always known him.”

“Yes.”

“And then tonight—” My voice catches as something that should’ve been obvious crashes into me.

“Wait.” I glare at her.

Penny pushes her glasses up her nose. She looks a little bashful.

“Wait.” I say again, trying to let the realization settle. _If I knew him…we went to school together…which means that Penny…._

“Pen. You knew!” My voice crackles in and out of focus, like the knob of an old-fashioned radio between stations. My head is spinning, and I feel as if, for the first time, Penny and me aren’t on the same frequency.

“Fuck, these fucking memories!” I say, and place the palm of my hand on my forehead, trying to stave off a headache, as another wave crashes into me. “Crowley, it almost feels like brain damage.”

“Because it is, you numpty,” she says, wringing her hands.

Another wave is crashing in and, Merlin and fucking Morganna, _it hurts!_ “We talked about it.” I see hot chocolates and whip cream, fluffy sweetness tracing her upper lip.

“And what did I tell you?” she asks, walking me through the memory. Helping me bring it into focus.

 _On the record, this is a terrible idea._ “Oh fuck.”

Pen’s smirking, but it’s an echo of her usual mirth. “I’ve been waiting over a month for this.” She clears her throat and then bellows, “I TOLD YOU SO!”

I can’t help smiling back. Even on this ridiculously shitty night. “I guess I had that coming.”

I blink my eyes, hard, as if the awkward reconfiguration of my memories is going on in my retinas rather than inside my skull. 

“Pen, how did my memories come back? Like, I’m glad they did. I think. But why—”

“RIGHT!” Penny says, leaning closer. She’s a terrier, hungry for a story. “Simon, please tell me I heard you wrong. You didn’t get your memories back in the middle of…”

She lets her sentence trail off and waits for me to fill in the gaps.

I really don’t want to.

“Yeah. I’d just…um…you know…”

She just raises her eyebrows at me.

“…sucked him off?”

“OH MY GOD!”

“I didn’t come here for you to laugh at me!”

“I’m sorry. But Simon. It’s…” She dissolves into a fit of giggles.

“You’re the fucking worst.”

Penny takes a huge gulp of her tea (which has gone cold) and shrugs, her purple cardigan slipping off one shoulder. “I’ve read everything I can get my hands on about memory magic. And none of it explains what’s happening to you and Baz. Or why,” she raises one eyebrow at me and I fucking hate how everyone in my life can do that except for me, “you got a huge wave of them back while you were boning your vampire boyfriend.”

“Bonin…not…I can’t…that’s not…that word!”

“Oh I’m sorry. Did I offend your finer sensibilities?” She launches a throw pillow at me. “Let me rephrase. While you were in the middle of sucking his dick.”

I don’t know whether to run and hide, to dunk my head in cold water (the shame is hot in my cheeks), or to correct her.

“We were done with that,” I say eventually, trying to scrape my dignity off the windshield of Penny’s motorcade of sass. “And I don’t think it’s a memory spell.”

I pause, trying to get the words right. “ The missus said—”

“The one on the tape?”

“Yeah. She said it was more a love spell. That if there wasn’t love there, that the spell wouldn’t really work.”

“You were right then,” Penny says, stretching her legs out from underneath her butt and stifling a yawn.

“About what?”

“Baz being the love of your life.”

That hits me like a punch to the chest, but Penny is still talking. “Maybe that’s why. Maybe there’s just no spell that can take that away. At least, not forever.”

“And being close to him…”

“Maybe it helped the process along?” An idea is squirming in Penny’s mind. I can see it forming in her eyes as she squints at me, almost as if it will help make her mental picture clearer.

“Huh.” My brain hurts.

“Maybe…the spell can’t mess with soul mates or true loves or whatever? Maybe that magic is just…bigger?”

I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know if Baz will ever talk to me again. I’m not sure that I would, if the roles were reversed. There are so many things that I don’t know.

“Si?” Penny’s voice cuts through the static. I look up from my lap and her brown eyes are soft. “Stop that spiral. And start thinking about what you're gonna do about it.”

**Baz**

_Baz (11:28 pm): Fuck my idiotic taste in men. Fuck my stupid obsession with unstable hero types. Fuck memory magic. Fuck everything._

**Dev (11:29 pm): You mad bro?**

Niall (11:29 pm): Can I call this an urgent text or will you bite my head off?

_Baz (11:30 pm): I think it’s safe to say that this text qualifies as urgent, yes._

_Baz (11:31 pm): How much did you know?_

Niall (11:32 pm): Not a lot. I just saw the aftershocks.

**Dev (11:32 pm): Baz you fell apart.**

Niall (11:33 pm): I’d never seen you like that before. Or since.

**Dev (11:34 pm): and its not that we don’t want you with snow.**

**Dev (11:34 pm): Love is love, right? It’s fucked up and messy.**

_Baz (11:35 pm): Profound._

**Dev (11:35 pm): Shut up. I just…**

**Dev (11:36 pm): I dont wanna see you hurt again. Thats all.**

_Baz (11:37 pm): I’m going to burn that place to the ground._

Niall (11:38 pm): Projecting your anger, Baz?

_Baz (11:38 pm): Keep your psychoanalysis to yourself._

**Dev (11:38 pm): best not to state your evil pans in texts mate**

Niall (11:39 pm): He doesn’t mean it literally, you idiot.

**Dev (11:40 pm): care to wager on that???**

**Simon**

The fuck up was colossal (Penny’s word) and “these kinds of fuck ups require a planned response.”

My agitation is a living thing. A creature from the deep, ready to bite down on the first person who crosses me. “So you’re telling me that I can’t just go over there?” 

“What? No! Of course not!” 

I’m flapping my arms in frustration, a baby bird struggling to fly. “But I just wanna talk to him.”

“Has he answered your texts?” 

I stare into my lap. “No.” 

“Simon.” Penny’s middle name should be stern. At least, I think it should in moments like these. “Baz isn’t just anyone. Baz is endgame. He’s—

“He’s the fucking love of my life.” 

“Are you gonna tell him this time?” 

And in that moment, my agitation solidifies into resolve. No more waiting, no standing outside his flat watching him cry, no letting this shit go poetically unsaid (Baz’s words, I think). “I’m gonna get it right this time.”

A plan is forming in my head (in its infancy) (will probably take a couple days to find all of the necessary items). 

It’s nostalgic and utterly ridiculous, but my face is smiling without intention or permission. Baz told me how he felt via cassette, confessions hiding in stringy film, coiled on tiny plastic wheels. It’s the softest he’s ever been. 

Maybe I need to use his love language. 

“Simon?”

My eyes are slow to refocus. “Yeah?”

“Your face got all twisted. Like you hurt something...or...you had some painful gas?”

I’m still struggling to focus, absorbed by the idea taking shape. “I think...Pen, I think I’m plotting.”

**Baz**

Anger is a simple emotion. It’s often attached to other things. An expression of deeper sentiment. The external manifestation of more complex feelings, like loss and love, betrayal and shame and grief. It’s the hammer for all of the other feelings.

The blunt object that smashes everything to bits.

Generally, I strive to keep my anger on a leash, to express my emotions in healthier ways. I’m a Pitch. We’re the pinnacle of composure and repressed emotions.

But not today.

It’s that strange in-between period between Christmas Day and New Year’s. The streets are mostly abandoned—surreal in London—and the sky is grey. There’s nothing extraordinary about the scene.

Except for the mage standing in the middle of the street. Me.

I have dozens of mental images of Simon standing square in the face of danger. His shoulders the single thing between the world of mages and destruction. Snow always stood like a hero. He fit the description. And I loved that about him. It set my undead fifteen-year-old heart on fire.

As I stand in front of Lacuna Inc, my wand in my sleeve and my dark coat hanging open, I can’t help but feel some of that thrill. I’m not poised to battle a manticore or to outwit a sphynx, I’m not staring down a dragon or single-handedly defeating the Humdrum, but there’s something magnetic coursing through me.

I think it's rage.

Anger is just an expression of some deeper hurt. I could always figure out a healthier way to vent the agony of rejection. (Yoga, for instance. I’ve heard good things about Yoga.)

But no.

Today, in the purgatory of holiday dead time, I’m just going to be mad.

I start towards the building, my Burberry billowing around me like a fucking cape.

_I’m going to burn this place to the ground._

“Hello, welcome to Lacuna. What can I do for you?” The receptionist doesn’t look up as I walk it, just coos gently at me from her seat. She’s just right for the role, too sweet to yell at. Too calm to hate.

“You should evacuate the building,” I answer without breaking stride. “There’s going to be a fire.”

She looks up at me from behind the desk. “Sir?”

My wand is in my hand before she can rise in her chair.

_“Run for your life.”_

Mary (the memory of her name comes crashing in) jerks up and out of her desk, sprinting out the front door as fast as her legs will carry her.

I push past the receptionist’s desk and through to the waiting room.

A greying older woman wrapped in a hideous fur coat is sitting next to a molding cat tree. I see a tall man with biceps the size of bowling balls huddled in the corner of the room, letting a simple gold wedding band slip in between his fingers like a magic trick. He seems surprised every time it doesn’t disappear.

The anger surges and I’m casting before I’m thinking.

 _“Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.”_ It’s an old spell (probably wouldn’t have worked even a few years ago if a movie hadn’t brought the words back to into the modern lexicon), used to divert unwanted attention or to wipe a mind temporarily blank.

The spell hits everyone in the room and I feel my knees buckle. _Not easy magic, that._

I flick my wand and they all rise, eyes empty. With another surge of magic, they file out of the room and into the street.

_I can’t believe I was so weak._

_I can’t believe that I was reduced to this._

But this isn’t the time to mope; it’s time to move.

Up the stairs. To make sure that every room in this place lights up like a fucking Christmas tree.

Fire has always been a part of me. Essential. Heat under dead flesh. Dancing beneath my fingertips.

_But Baz, your flammable._

The heat flares to life and flames dance around my fingers. A little push, and these flames become an inferno.

_So is everything._

And today, I’m going to give a demonstration.

**Penny**

“They think the fire started on the upper floors. Fire department officials say that the cause of the blaze is still to be determined, but early reports suggest that faulty wiring may have caused the tragic destruction of this beautiful old building.”

“Lacuna was a pillar of the community,” a young girl speaks to the camera, soft blonde hair hanging around her shoulders. “Dr. Barish did important cognitive work and fought tirelessly to advocate for improved treatment for the pains of our modern age.”

“Oh fuck off,” I say to the screen.

I talk back to my television. When Simon moved out, the silence in the flat overwhelmed my eardrums. I needed an outlet, and cable news became my verbal punching bag. (I engage Tucker Carlson in a fierce debate every night, meeting his mendacious persona with my own brand of rage.)

_Wait. Did she say Lacuna?_

Oh no. No no no. I pick up my phone and open up my phone and dial like my fingers are on fast-forward. He picks up on the second ring. “Simon!”

“What? Pen, is everything okay?”

“Did you burn down Lacuna?” I’m breathless.

“No,” he says and the confusion in his words is obvious. Simon is many things, but a liar is not one of them.

“Shit. Gotta go.”

“Penny what—”

I end the call before he can finish and am dialling again before I can overthink it.

“Yes, who is this?” Baz’s voice has always been a little too perfect. The consonants too sharp, the syllables too pronounced.

“Baz, did you burn down Lacuna?”

There’s a long silence.

“Bunce is that you?”

“Answer the question.”

“I thought Snow was the one who accused me of plotting, Bunce. This is beneath you.”

“Quit dodging Pitch.”

“I’m a bit tied up at the moment, Bunce. Please call to accuse me of arson at a time that is more convenient for me. Perhaps never?”

“Okay, now you’re just being bitch—”

The line goes dead.

Well, I suppose that answers one question.

**Simon**

In my experience, grand gestures are limited to very special occasions. They’re covered in the spectacle of candles being blown out, of speaking now and fuck holding my peace, of the clock striking midnight and the magic it leaves behind. Christmas, weddings, New Year’s Eve. Saving the day, just in time. 

“Grand romantic gestures give young kids horribly stilted perceptions of love and romance,” Penny had said. “It sets them up for horrible disappointment in adulthood. It’s a trope that you only see in movies and bad fanfiction. Do you really want to feed into that?”

“What’s fanfiction?”

“Simon, sometimes I’m amazed that we’re friends.”

“Whatever.”

Today doesn’t feel like a day that could be saved. December 28th doesn’t even have the decency to feel anticlimactic. 

It’s slow in the streets: folks are either away for the holidays or sleeping off a hangover (turkey or something stronger or both). I tried to time things so that I made my plea after everything had closed down. To minimize the audience. Baz has never liked public displays of affection. And this is PDA on a grand scale. 

The sun is lolling on the edge of the horizon, tucked into bed but not quite asleep yet. 

The boombox is heavy under my arm—fuck I hope I can hold it up for as long as it’s gonna take. I wonder if a heart can beat itself to a pulp. 

What a fine fucking frenzy this is. 

Penny’s initial assessment of the plan, late on the night the memories came back, had not been positive. “Your plan last time was to break and enter. And your plan before that was to watch him cry on his balcony and do nothing?”

“Okay, ouch. Sheath your words.”

She’d continued, undeterred. “And your plan this time is to blast music at him from an antiquated music delivery system?”

“Um. Yeah?”

The fuck up was colossal; she’d said it herself. So bad that it bled from one version of our relationship into the next.

I couldn’t just make him a mix tape. That wasn’t enough. 

“Once you’ve got his attention, you gotta flip the tape. So he hears your message.”

“Right.” 

“And the window might not be open,” Pen had said. 

“Fuck. It’s Baz. It’ll definitely be closed.” 

“I’ll drive by before you get there and spell it open.”

“Penny, that’s kinda creepy.”

“Says the guy who stalked him for a full year.”

“I did not stalk! I…lurked!”

“Sure Simon.”

So many parts of this plan can go wrong. But as I stand on the street, holding a boombox under my arm and trying to pretend my heart isn’t exploding in my chest, I’m not thinking about that.

Because the hard part is over. I know what I want (who I want). I’ve decided what to do (show that fucker I love him. Tell him. The best way I know how). I’ve planned it and now I’m here.

I was never going to be Gene Kelly (I’ll never have his voice or his sweet sweet dance moves) and so John Cussak will have to do.

He’s more my type anyway.

All that’s left to do is follow through. And barrelling headfirst into scary situations? That’s what I do best.

I step forward into the street.

Look up at the balcony (door wide open, thank Merlin for Penny).

Lift the boombox above my head.

And press play.

**Baz**

Wallowing is for the weak. Self-pity is unproductive. I hold both of these truths to be self-evident. Which is why no one will ever know how I spent the days after Christmas. Eyes rubbed raw (I wasn’t crying), chest torn open (I wasn’t sad), grey matter a mess needles (I would never overthink).

A purgatory of rage and shame.

Shame that I gave up on him, that I let someone take my memories, that I was so bloody weak. Self-loathing is a subject in which I am well studied. 

Still. I’m a Pitch. It’s hard to recognize the boy who gave up his memories. My anger flares even as I think about the spell, about what it reduced me to.

My hair still smells like smoke. Pity.

“Listen baby.”

_Is that…music?_

Someone’s playing music outside. It’s wafting through the open door of my balcony (why the fuck is the door open in the middle of December?) (why the fuck is there music in the street?).

“Ain’t no mountain high, ain’t no valley low—”

I think I hear my bones creak as I sit up.

“If you need me call me, no matter where you are—”

I pad over to the window. My hair is a disaster and I’m in joggers. But no one will see me.

“Just call my name, I’ll be there in a hurry—”

That is clearly music. And it’s loud. It’s like they’re playing it right outside my window.

“Ain’t no mountain high enough—”

_Is that Marvin fucking Gaye?_

“Ain’t no river wide enough—”

I step out onto my balcony to get a better look.

“To keep me from getting to you babe—”

It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the warm light at sunset. Takes my brain a moment to catch up with the image that is becoming clearer and clearer as my eyes take in the scene.

Simon Snow is standing outside my flat.

His arms stretched above his head.

Holding a fucking boombox.

**Simon**

“Snow?”

_Oh fuck fuck fuck, he’s seen me._

_Fuck, that’s the point._

_Fuck fuck fuck._

I want to wave, but my arms are holding this goddamn boombox. So instead, I look up at him, pray his vampire senses are as sharp as I always suspected, and give him my best smile.

“Uh, hi.” His hair is mussed, and he has no right to look that fit in trackies. But that’s just Baz. Perfect in every context. I can’t really see his face. But he’s here. He’s listening. Which means I have a chance.

“What are you doing!?” He sounds somewhere between irritated and mortified, but it’s too late to turn back now.

(“No wind. No rain.”)

“Saying sorry!” I shout, because he’s two stories up and it feels like the right thing to do.

“With a boombox!”

(“Winter’s cold can’t stop me baby.”)

“It’s romantic and shit!” I’m blustering, but I’ve always been all bluster.

“Says who?”

(“My love is alive, down in my heart”)

“John Cusak for starters! But shut up for a sec!”

I lower the boombox and start fumbling with the tape deck. I just need him to stay there, on that balcony for one more minute. Just a minute.

“Oh, well done. That’s going to endear me to your cause. Announcing to the entire block that you’re a raging lunatic—”

“Baz—” I growl, flipping the tape and shoving it back in the player.

“—who never does anything the reasonable way—”

 _Fuck my stubby fingers straight to hell._ “Would you just gimme a sec,” I say, standing back up and mashing the play button.

“—who’s hero complex is the size of a fucking planet—”

But then my voice starts up on the recording and Baz stops speaking.

**Baz**

That oaf is going to get me kicked out of my building…

“Please state your name and who you are here to erase.”

“My name is Simon Snow. And I’m here…oh god, I’m here to erase Baz.”

_What the actual—_

“If you would like to provide a reason, feel free to do so now.”

“It’s not like I hate him or anything. It’s the opposite, really.” There’s a sniffle on the tape. _Fuck my vampire hearing._

“I love him.”

_He loves me._

“I’ve loved him for years.”

_He loves me._

“I loved him when I thought I hated him. I loved his stupid fancy hair thingers and the way he would smell.”

_He loves me._

“I loved how he would push me like no one else. I loved being with him. I loved that he was a better boyfriend than he was an arsehole. And that sometimes he was both and I loved that too. I never stopped loving him. And I never will.”

_He never stopped loving me._

“That’s not really a reason for erasing someone.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But I don’t wanna spend the last moments I’ve got talking about the bad stuff. I love that lanky fucker. Even when you take the memories, I’ll still figure out how to love him. And…yeah, I think that’s all I wanna say about it.”

_Simon Snow loves me._

**Simon**

There’s static on the tape, and I let it play. Baz is frozen in place, staring straight ahead, not looking at me. The breeze picks up and rustles his hair. The long line of his jaw is tight—I can feel his teeth grinding from here.

“I came here, that day,” I say. I don’t know why I say it. “After I went off. After I said those terrible things.”

“I never knew that.” He’s still not looking down at me. But he's talking. That’s a start.

“I meant to come up. To tell you I was sorry. I woulda done anything, Baz. I was gonna beg.”

I can’t hear him sighing, but I can see it in his shoulders. “You didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t. And I’m so fucking sorry.”

I put the boombox down and look up at him. “I don’t want this to be an ending Baz. I don’t want to pretend that we had one. The memories…” I feel my words crowding my mouth, a mob of anxiety and need. “Some of them were shit. I was shit to you. I was so fucking awful and I’m not good enough and I’m so fucking sorry. But Baz?” I stare up at the gorgeous prick, standing on the balcony and am overwhelmed with how much I want him.

“I love you. I loved you then. I love you now.”

Saying it out loud feels like a confession. A sweet release.

“And…” My heart has beat itself black and blue but I can’t stop now. I just can’t. “Fuck Baz, please let me earn it and work for it and…be better than I was. Because I want this.”

The words echo around the block, and I don’t know if I’ve ever said anything more true.

“I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole fucking life.”

**Baz**

_He loves me._

Simon Snow is standing in front of my building, playing his love for me on a cassette tape, telling me he wants me and wants this and wants us.

My thoughts are still processing, ones and zeros updating the way that my brain codes reality.

As that beautiful man stands in front of me, golden hair blowing in the December chill, no jacket to speak of, forearms bare and face as earnest as I’ve ever seen it, I realize that I don’t need a grand gesture.

What I need is time.

Time to think and process and feel.

Time to be sure that something changed.

To know, without a doubt, that this isn’t some doomed romance, that we won’t be forever trapped in a cycle of falling in love and falling apart.

I need to know that it will be different this time.

And I think…I think I need to figure that out on my own.

“Snow, I…” I nearly stumble over the words as they leave my mouth. “I need…I need some time.”

**Simon**

“Oh.”

The momentum of the moment comes to a crashing halt. My heart buckles under the strain.

_That’s it, he’ll never want you, you’re pathetic and this was pointless and you should just go home and accept that you fucked up so bad that you’ll never fix it and besides, who could ever love you anyway—_

I squeeze my eyes and count off a few breaths. I will not spiral. Not now.

I told him I would earn this. And I plan to. If this is what Baz needs right now, then that is what I’ll give him.

“Yeah, I get that.” I force the words out. “I can do that.”

I bend down to pick up the boombox. I need to get to my car before I start to cry. He can’t see me cry—

“No!” His voice is strangled. Like he’s hanging by a thread. “Leave…leave that ridiculous contraption.” 

“You want me to leave the boom—" 

“Yes.” The syllable is so sharp it could cut me. 

I place the boombox on the sidewalk and start to back away slowly. “You uh—you sure you want me to just...leave it in the street?”

He’s pinching the bridge of his nose, like he’s always done (in this story and the last one) when he’s losing control. “Yes, Snow.”

“I could bring it up. It wouldn’t take a minute. No trouble really.” I want to hold him and wipe those tears from his cheeks. My palms are swimming in nervous sweat. 

“Just stop. And go.” 

Time. He needs time. And it’s my turn to give it to him. “Okay.” 

**Baz**

I listen to the words over and over. “I love him.” _He loves me_. “I never stopped loving him” _He never stopped_. “I never will.” 

I listen to it on repeat. I retrace the words, obsess over them, carve them into my memory like a brand.

I wear the tape thin.

**Simon**

Every day that passes feels like the longest day of my life.

**Baz**

I’ve always wanted to have someone on New Year’s. Someone to look out at the sky and admire the fireworks, spray painted galaxies doing their impermanent dance across the night. Someone to press my lips to as the new year counted down. It’s a secret desire, one that I keep tucked away for that singular special occasion, only to be perpetually disappointed year after year.

The yearning is an artificial one, rooted in a construct of fairy tale moments where the handsome hero of the story finds the love of his life and solves all of the problems in the world with a kiss. At the stroke of midnight, for dramatic effect. A fantasy I will never own to, but Crowley did I miss Snow tonight.

I spent so many years wanting to think about him, craving the touch of a memory that I couldn’t hold on to. Of a man who I used to know. Used to care for. Definitely loved.

All I can think about is Simon Snow.

There is no reprieve from it. Simon saturates everything, he is stitched into the fabric of my life in a way that feels utterly permanent.

Forgetting does seem easier.

He Say Anything’d me. The cheesiest moment from the worst romantic comedy. The bastard bought a boombox (I’ve no idea where he got it) and played me a fucking mix tape outside of my flat.

It’s so sentimental, so overdone, so quintessentially Simon. The image of him standing on the pavement beneath my flat, boombox lifted over his head, as the bloody tape spewed his (embarrassing) (awkward) (perfect) confessions out for everyone to hear.

In front of every neighbour.

Every random passerby.

Every stranger who deigned to listen.

Chin jutted out. Fighting stance.

Fighting for me. I want it to make a difference. I’m just so fucking scared.

It’s late, just past midnight, and the smell of the fireworks still hangs in the air. The tang of burnt sulfur is pungent even to the average nose; my vampire nostrils feel shorn off.

I don’t know how long I’ve been walking. The city at night has captured my feet in the tide as it sways, in and out.I’ve stopped paying attention to the buildings. To the way they seem to meld into something more suburban. Until the streets start to feel well-trodden. Familiar even.

_Is it enough time yet?_

I feel like I’m supposed to know. To be able to take my emotional temperature and decide if I’m ready to jump back into the gorgeous arms of that ridiculous man or if I’m determined to resist the gravity that’s been pulling me in my whole life.

Dev told me I was being an idiot (“He came to your flat with a fucking boombox, dude. Can’t imagine the mopey fuck I used to know doing that.”)

“You’re a mopey fuck,” I’d snapped. Not my best rebuttal.

Niall told me to wait for a sign (“Something will happen and you’ll know, Baz.”)

I told Niall to fuck off.

I’ve always insisted that fate is an artificial construct. That destiny is for the uninspired. Pre-ordination is for people with shit imaginations.

And yet.

I’m walking down an abandoned street, student housing sagging to my left and to my right. Up ahead, there is a bridge, probably meant for walking, only wide enough for two people to stand, side by side. It’s small and unexceptional.

It’s familiar.

It’s unoccupied.

I don’t know if I could’ve found my way back here if I had tried.

Perhaps this place, where Snow came to find his peace, is where I will finally find mine.

**Simon**

I’ve never spent New Years with Baz. We missed it that first year (he’d been out at Pitch manor) and we didn’t get another chance. Depression, memory erasure, bad fucking timing? Two people determined to self-sabotage?

I thought for sure that I could change the narrative this time. Cause I’m not eighteen anymore. I’m not fresh out of the worst moment of my life, fighting to stay afloat in shark infested waters. The undertow of PTSD and crippling depression has receded a bit and, these days, I’m a better swimmer. That, and I stay closer to the shore.

As midnight came and went, I couldn’t help but think about fate and fucking destiny and all of that weird stuff that you see in stories. I don’t know if I believe in all that. I don’t know if I was supposed to find Baz again, in spite of everything that happened, all the lengths we went to try to run away from…whatever we are.

Tonight, as the new year came striding in, it was just me and Pen and a couple flutes of cheap champagne (“but the glasses are fancy, so we’re halfway there. You know. To a grown-up celebration”) (I’d laughed at that). Fireworks exploded above the city skyline and we watched the colours pop in and out of existence, flashes of light intruding on the new year. I’ve always loved this balcony (it was the first place he ever called me Simon) and I’m glad I haven’t had to say goodbye to this flat, all these years later (even if we’re still stuck with that stupid chalkboard accent wall). As the new year started in earnest, I leaned into Penny and she leaned into me and we just stared up at the sky.

Maybe this year will be different. Maybe this is the year that I finally get it right.

_Time. He needs time._

Well, if that’s what he wants, I’ll wait. This year. The next. As long as it fucking takes.

Once the show was over, I hugged Penny, tight as I could, and kissed the top of her fuzzy curls. “I think I’m gonna go for a walk.”

“You okay, Si?”

She knows that this is one of the things I do when the world feels too much (my therapist calls it a coping strategy) (I call it shit that helps me deal).

But I am okay, and I tell her so. “I just need some air.”

I should probably be cold (Baz would be), but I’m not. There’s a listlessness in my stride. I’m not really going anywhere. There’s no intention under my heels.

I’m just wandering.

I love Baz and I’m glad I finally said it. I think that much has always been true. I loved him before and I love him now.

But this time…this time it’s different. I don’t need him to be the only good thing in my life. I don’t need him to be the life vest that keeps me from drowning. These days, I just love him and I think we can swim together.

It seems like a small difference, but I think it’s an important one.

I don’t realize where I am until I’m almost on top of it.

I’m standing at the edge of a bridge. My bridge. Best place in the city to see the stars.

It’s small.

It’s familiar.

And it’s not unoccupied.

_Holy shit._

He’s standing on the far end of the bridge, his Burberry buttoned up to his throat, dark hair hanging loose around his face. His arms are resting on the ledge and he’s staring up into the sky. It’s almost as if he’s looking for answers up there, moonlight pooling in his irises.

It’s Baz.

**Baz**

“I know you’re there.” Even as the words leave my mouth, I feel the echo of history, the taste of dejavu. The knowledge, as deep in my gut as the tug of the Crucible, that I will spend my life being drawn to this man.

His coat is wide open and his tawny curls are blowing in the wind. _Of course_. My traitorous feet, this manipulative fucking city, brought me to this spot. On this night. Brought me this boy.

Because of course it’s Simon.

He’s gravity, pulling me in and out, holding me close, and pushing me away, and stepping on my feet. I’ll spend my life slow dancing with Simon Snow.

I don’t have to do this. I can turn away. Run. Like I did for all those years at Watford, like I did again when I agreed to that stupid spell. I could try not to look back.

As quick as the thought comes, it dies. Deep breaths. My mind counts them out. I take a step forward. And another. Until I’m settled next to him, forearms resting on the ledge, so close that I can feel the heat rolling off him in waves.

For a long time (maybe a minute) (what feels like forever), neither of us say anything.

Snow’s usually the brave one. He was when he was eighteen and took my face in his hands and kissed my stutters away. He was again a few weeks ago, when the courageous fuck pulled me towards him, three inches folding into a kiss.

Maybe tonight, it’s my turn.

“I’m sorry.”

“Wha—” Simon’s mouth is hanging open (mouth breather).

“For so much.”

“No Baz—”

“I looked at you as something to fix.”

“You did everything you for me!” He’s blustering and I love it so much it aches. I’m so sick with this man.

“But you’re not a thing, Snow.”

“No,” he says, tears in his eyes. “I was an arsehole. I pushed you away. I was so so awful.”

I can’t handle his apologies right now. “I erased you,” I say, laying all of my regrets bare.

“I erased you right back. It was selfish and so fucking stupid—”

I’m not listening. Instead, I’m searching for courage. For words that I’m not brave enough to use. For something Simon would say. 

“I want you.”

His eyes stretch wide as they stare up at me. (Always up.) “Wait. What?”

“Don’t make me say it again, you numpty.”

“But the boombox.”

“It was horrific—”

“—I know. I’m sorry, it was so stupid—” 

“—and incredibly sweet, Simon.”

I watch his face go through the motions, projecting his thoughts for me to bear witness.

“Wait. Does that mean…” He turns to me, blue eyes blazing. “Baz. I fucked up. Like so bad. And I don’t have the words to explain. Like…I’ve been trying…to think of the right thing to say…but I cant…I want…I want. I want…fuck I want—”

Enough of this. For once, I don’t make him stumble. For once, I’m brave.

I close the distance.

My two cold hands cradle his cheeks, thumbs brushing away tears.

I lean in.

And I kiss him.

“Is this what you want?”

He doesn’t answer. Just pulls me back into him, that beautiful mouth determined to make me understand.

**Simon**

_For years. For now. Forever._

  
  



	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Golden-haired backpacks, the most Ultimate frisbee, meet-cutes, and the answer to the question of "How did you two meet?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started plotting this fic, I did not think it would be angst-filled; believe it or not, I thought it would be fairly fluffy.  
> ...I can admit when I was wrong...  
> Which is why this epilogue exists. Thank you for trudging through the trenches of angst with me, friends. Thank you for the heart break and the tears. <3

**TWO MONTHS AFTER**

**Baz**

“I’ll have a pumpkin mocha breve and he’ll have a hot chocolate.” I lean in and whisper the next part. “With extra whip.”

The barista’s hair is a shocking shade of red but he smiles in a way that warms his eyes.

Simon has his body draped over the glass display case. “Ba-az! They have—”

But I know what they have and I’ve been waiting for him to discover it.

“—sour cherry scones!”

The barista looks at Simon like he wants to bundle him up in sweet nothings and hold him close—as I watch Snow ogle the baked goods, worshipping at the alter or butter and flour and the magic they make, I can’t even blame him. My boyfriend’s charm is contagious.

For Simon, this is a religious experience, and I’d wanted to give it to him. Wanted it so much that I’d called practically every bakery in London to find one that made (or were open to making) sour cherry scones.

“I’ll have two sour cherry scones,” I say, trying to look exasperated and failing miserably.

“Six!” Simon is behind me, his arms slipping around my waist, his chin nuzzling into my neck. The public display makes my insides squirm, equal parts mortified and relieved that he wants me so much it spills into everyone else’s space. “We need at least six.”

The Barista’s face melts as he looks up at my golden-haired backpack. I glance down at the barista’s name tag: Keith. (Are all fucking Keiths doomed to fawn all over my boyfriend) (What kind of a name is Keith, anyway?)

Keith winks at me before picking up a piece of wax paper and starting to dump scones into a paper bag. “So how did you two meet?” he asks.

I feel the arms wrapped around me go slack. “Well…”

“Um…”

The truth is, we’ve never quite figured out how to navigate this question. It’s simple enough and it’s one we face with a fair amount of regularity.

And yet.

How do you tell the story when it happened twice?

…

Snow kicks open the front door of my flat and the door knob hits the wall with a dent-worthy thud.

“You alright, Snow?”

He isn’t listening to me—too worked up to let reason wiggle its way in. Simon tosses the paper bag onto the counter, our baked goods thwumping against the tile backsplash.

I set my keys in the dish by the entranceway and turn to face my boyfriend. “Snow, why are you abusing your scones?”

“I didn’t…I don’t…” He waves hands at me and, Crowley, I love his bluster. I love the red rising in his cheeks and the vein in his neck when he’s agitated.

I love him. In every context.

“I didn’t know what to say.” When he finally finds the words, they’ve deflated to a wheeze. “When he asked how we met. I…I couldn’t…I can’t…I ruined our story!”

The slump in his shoulders tells me all I need to know. He’s embarrassed and vulnerable; he looks like a guilty golden retriever.

I slip off my shoes, wrap my arms around his waist, and bury my face in his neck. “Snow. You’re catastrophizing.”

“Am not,” he mumbles, but one of his hands finds mine and squeezes it. Hard. “We’ll never get a proper meet cute.”

“Where did you learn that term?”

“Don’t matter—”

“Fucking Bunce,” I growl.

“I just…I broke our story, didn’t I?” There’s still angst swirling in Simon Snow’s veins. “I was such a fuck up.”

I press a kiss into skin. “So?”

“You’re not supposed to agree!” Simon shrieks, trying to wiggle out of my arms, but I am not budging. My grip on his hips is steel (vampire strength has its advantages).

“Snow,” I say, holding him still and licking a long stripe up the side of his neck. “It was a barista.”

The shiver that ripples through him, the way his pulse starts to race…I know that I'm distracting (I revel in it).

“I wanna have a cute story Baz.” He’s moaning the words. (I have plans for more words, leaving Snow’s soft mouth, sounding just like this)

“Hmm,” I say, as my hands slip under his shirt, tracing lines of muscle (yes, my boyfriend works out) (insists it helps his mental health) (I’m not complaining). “We’ll just have to alternate.”

“But people might notice!”

“Fuck people.” My fingers trace circles around his nipple. This conversation isn’t going to last much longer. “We can tell a new story every time someone asks.” I pinch down then and he’s all guttural noises, flushed up to his neck. “Make it ours. Every time.”

“But but but…” He’s panting and doesn’t have much sadness left to spend.

I let my teeth scrape the tender skin under his ear. “No more arguments,” I say, and pick him up.

“Baz what’re you—”

But I’m dumping him on my mattress and slamming the door and there’s no more talk of meet cutes or expectations or happy beginnings.

Because I’m happy now and that’s what counts.

**ONE YEAR AFTER**

**Simon**

“So, how did you two meet?”

My face splits into a grin and I can feel the layer of mud cracking along my cheek. I’m filthy (Baz is gonna make me shower before I get into bed tonight) (I’ll make him take one with me) (and maybe other things). There’s mud caked up my calves. I’ve got grass stains on both knees and an open gash on my elbow—rug burn from a particularly rough crash as I dove for the disc.

Ultimate frisbee is serious business.

I remember the day that I brought the flyer home. “Baz, I wanna play sports with you.”

I’d dumped my work bag on the floor (Baz hates when I do that) (“you’re a hurricane, Snow. Your mess leaves a path of destruction”), I slammed the flyer down on the counter, and I waited.

I’ve memorized most of the muscles that move in Baz’s face, cataloged every minute movement. I’ve pulled noises out of that man I never expected (and will never forget). I've turned his gorgeous grey eyes into storm clouds. So when Baz raised one eyebrow, clicked his tongue, and furrowed his brow, I knew what he would say before the words left his lips.

“Is this a joke, Snow?”

Even all these years later, I still can’t hold my own in an argument with Baz (and we don’t use fists anymore. Puts me at an even bigger disadvantage).

“Nope.”

“But,” he'd paused, obviously reconsidering his words. Baz is kinder these days (at least, he tries to be) (I think). “Frisbee is not a sport.”

“Is too! I saw them Baz.” I’d hovered around outside the community centre, watching the teams running up and down the fields in these patterns I didn’t understand. “Tons of running.”

“I don’t know if the act of running makes this,” he’d waved at the flyer, “a sport.”

“Please, Baz.” I’d wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him to my chest. I love that I can do that now. It’s a low blow, but in the best possible way. 

“You really want this?” he’d said, and the muscles around his eyes told me he was serious. “This is important to you?” 

I gulped. Sometimes, things with Baz are just so intense that it makes thinking hard. “Uh, yeah.”

“Okay,” he whispered, pressing a quick kiss to my forehead and then heading to his office.

“What’re you doing?” I’d asked, still a bit stunned by his sudden closeness—the smell of him, the way his hair had brushed against my cheek (Baz is still overwhelming, even now).

“Research.” 

Days and days of it. The sound of how-to videos, explanations of field positioning and different types of throws, long monologues on the efficacy of the horizontal stack or epic leapfrog moments captured on video poured through his office door. Typical Baz. Intense. Fucking ruthless. The single-minded focus with which he approaches different parts of his life is unparalleled.

I fucking love it. I love him.

We’re all sitting around a table and the empty glasses are starting to cluster. My back aches, my legs feel like rubber, and I know that I’m gonna have a bruise on my knee tomorrow. Even now, after playing an entire season, I’m still surprised at how exhausted I am. I didn’t think that frisbee would be this fucking hard.

Baz though. Baz is built for this. He’s a cutter (I had to learn all this frisbee lingo and holy fuck did I hate it at first), and Aleister Crowley, if he weren’t already mine, I think I would’ve fallen in love just watching him run down the field. He practically flies when he sprints for a pass. The lanky fuck already has a brilliant reach, but the way he jumps…

The evenings after ultimate are a haze of hopsy breath and sweat and mud, of clothes discarded all over the kitchen, completely starkers before we get to the bedroom. Sometimes we don’t make it. Last week, I bent him over the side of the couch and—

“Simon?”

I’m staring at Baz with my mouth open, completely oblivious to the bloke next to me. Right. Daniel. “Uh, yeah?”

“How did you two meet?”

I look back across the table at Baz. The pub is dingy and the light is sallow—but Baz is at the centre of it all and it’s almost like the world revolves around him. The swinging light fixture dangles from the ceiling (I don’t know why we keep coming back here) (it’s a shit hole) (but a 3 for 5 happy hour is too good a deal to pass up) and bathes his face in yellow.

I think it’s his turn.

“Hey Baz!” I shout over the din.

“What do you want, Snow?” His words are still sharp as ever, pushing me. I push back. We push each other. We match.

“How did we meet?” He’s at least five pints deep. I love him like this. He’s loose and still riding the high of brilliant catch in the end zone right as time was about to expire. The way his eyes narrow at me, the smirk that sets my insides smouldering…

...yeah, I already know that the story’s gonna be good.

**Baz**

Snow has dirt caked on the right side of his face, and Crowley, I want to rub it off with my thumb. Snow was a beast tonight, using those broad shoulders to mark and muscle on defence. I’ve wanted to tear him out of his uniform since half time.

His hair is a mess of mud (it rained most of the match) and sweat and it hurts to take my eyes off him. So I don’t. I stare at him across the table, hold his plain blue eyes in mine, and I lick my lips. 

“How did we meet?” I know it’s my turn and I feel beer making me bold. I’ve had this story circling inside my skull for weeks now and I’ve been keen to tell it. 

“I was flying back to London from Toronto,” I start. “It was the holidays and that fucking Canadian winter hellscape was acting up.”

Everyone has turned to listen, but all I can see are those soft blue irises, and the tiny lines that crinkle around the edges just for me (I’d kill for that smile).

“I was standing in the terminal, sipping lukewarm Starbucks, minding my own business, when I felt a backpack collide with the back of my head.”

Simon bursts into an ugly-laugh. I think I hear a snort. “Coffee spills everywhere. My phone flies out of my hand and crashes into the hard tile of the airport floor. He practically knocked me to the ground.”

“Hey, c’mon Baz!” Snow protests, but the laughter is still rippling through him. Aftershocks following an earthquake.

But I’m on a roll. “My screen cracked. My coffee is all over my pants.”

“Simon,” Daniel says, his mouth hanging open. “You did not!”

“He did!” I’m shouting now, but I can’t stop. The way Snow is smiling at me is contagious. “The bastard had the audacity to grab a fistful of napkins and start trying to dry me off.”

I look up and give Snow the grin I usually save for the bedroom. “He started patting down my lap…”

“Pretty sure that’s harassment, mate,” Katie (one of our handlers) says, elbowing Snow in the ribs.

He’s spluttering into his pint, a million shades of red rising in his cheeks.

“My trousers ruined, smelling of sugar and coffee, with a broken phone, a stranger groping me—”

“I did not grope!”

“Hush Snow, I’m not finished.” He wanted this. A new story every time. Well, I’m going to give it to him. “Thankfully, the airline saved me the trouble of trying to extricate myself from this imbecile of a man,” I say. “I heard my name overhead, as they paged me and requested I come to the desk. Only to tell me that they had overbooked first class and that they were so sorry but I would have to be moved to coach.”

Everyone around the table is hanging on my every word. “They did not!”

“They did,” I say, and I know I’m smiling like a lunatic, but I can’t help it. Not when he’s looking at me like that. “Assured me that the emergency exit row had almost as much room—blatant lies, I can assure you. Gave me a refund for the flight, but that’s not the point.” Simon looks like he’s ready to eat me alive. I’m going to let him. Later.

“Would you all like to know the best part?”

“Yes!” more than one person shouts.

“As I shuffle onto the flight, pants still sticky, I get to my seat and you’ll never guess who’s in the spot next to me.”

Everyone is staring at me, but all I can see is Simon. He is beaming.

**THREE YEARS AFTER**

**Simon**

Attempting to do anything sneaky when you live with Baz Pitch is an exercise in futility. Makes me think that, if the bastard had wanted to end things back at Watford, he could’ve done it pretty easily. He’s just so bloody observant and smart and he pays so much attention. In most things, I don’t mind.

But this…

I step out of the damp afternoon and into the shop. The bell above the heavy door makes a gentle tingling sound. I look up and take the place in: glass cases line up against the walls, displaying their wares and sparkling up at me.

_I should’ve brought Penny._

“I think I wanna marry Baz,” I’d said, a couple weeks back. Penny hadn’t responded with anything coherent—it was a long stream of squeals and snorts and OH-MY-GOD-SIMONs. 

“I guess I gotta get a ring, yeah?”

“Of course you do!” Penny’s voice was several octaves higher than normal. “I can come with you if you want!”

 _Next time,_ I think as I look up at the rows and rows of jewellery and try to swallow the intense feelings of inadequacy and panic. 

_Next time, I’m definitely bringing Penny._

An aging man sidles out of the back room and heads towards me. Somehow, I’ve found the wedding bands. 

_Is this what you get if you’re proposing to another bloke? Would Baz want some kind of diamond or something fancy embedded in the band? Fuck, why did I think I could do this alone…_

“So, how did you meet her?”

There’s something soft about the way the way the man’s face crinkles as he looks at me; I must look nervous.

“Him, actually,” I say.

“Of course. Shouldn’t assume. I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “S’alright.” I can’t stop looking at the bands. Trying to figure out what on earth will make Baz want to marry me. _How am I even going to ask?_

I feel the spiral trying to pull me down and so I latch onto the old man, focus on the grey-white colour of his hair and the wrinkles in his vest. A worn name tag spells out his name: Burt.

“How did you meet _him_ ,” Burt says, offering me another smile.

A smile that I can’t help but return. “It’s a funny story, that,” I say. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

“Try me,” he says, and so I do.

“I was actually on a date with another bloke. Some Daniel guy, who was all kinds of sweet and nice. And he gave me his number and everything.”

“Sounds like you’re a real charmer,” Burt says, his face warm like a fireplace. There’s something cheeky in the way he’s grinning at me.

“Naw,” I say, waving him off. “Just so awkward that people take pity on me.”

“If you say so.”

“But I was nervous,” I continue. “So nervous. My hands were sweating up a storm. It was so bad, I smudged the number he gave me. The last two digits got completely fuck—I mean, completely smudged.”

“I’ve heard stronger words than that, son,” he says.

“Right,” I say, blushing a little. “So, I went to text this bloke. Daniel. And, you gotta know, I was so excited. First date I’d ever been on with a guy. And I was expecting something…you know,” I say, looking up into Burt’s eyes for affirmation. “A nice reply.”

“Of course,” he says.

“Anyways, that’s not what I got. Cause I texted the wrong number. At two in the morning. And I woke the bloke up. Not the one I’d just been on a date with. Another one.” I point down at the display case. “This one. The one I wanna marry.”

“Sounds like you found your way. Against all odds,” Burt says.

“Something like that.”

**FIVE YEARS AFTER**

**Simon**

Long dark drapes hang from the windows (makes me feel like I’m in a vampire lair, but I think they’re doing it to set a mood) (a weird fucking mood). There are chandeliers overhead and a thousand utensils laid out in front of me. Baz ordered me the roast beef, with Yorkshire puddings, all drizzled in a river of gravy. It was a meal designed to make a fool of me; I cannot eat roast beef with restraint.

I should never’ve agreed to come out to this. Baz just finished speaking at a conference; smart fucker just gave a keynote on the importance of contact tracing during pandemic-level disease outbreaks, and the organizers asked us to come out for a bite, insisted really. Now that I’m here, I feel underdressed and messy and—

“So, how did you two meet?”

The question shocks me out of my spiral, and I look up at Baz. He’s swallowing a smile, sipping his merlot and concealing the twitch in his lips around the glass.

No one in the restaurant notices—even if they were studying his perfect cheekbones, the sharp lines of his jaw, the way that he licks his lips as he sets the glass down, they probably wouldn’t’ve seen it.

But I do.

Baz is the only subject I’m an expert in.

**Baz**

I can see Snow smirking as he spears a baked potato—he’s trying to control the pace with which he shoves food into his mouth. In an effort to impress my colleagues. To limited success. (His button down is covered in the paint flecks of his failure to feign fancy.)

It’s a game now. Has been for years. I trace the tip of my shoe against the back of his thigh and nod my head. I’ll let him field it this time.

“You’re not going to believe it,” he says. It’s a common refrain of his and it elicits the exact response that he wants. Simon is actually an excellent storyteller when he can string the words together.

He’ll never own to it, but Simon plans these stories ahead. He’d flounder in a panic of stutters and rushed sentences if he didn’t. I know that there’s a note in his phone labelled “meet cute.”

I’m sick with this man.

“I think we were meant to meet each,” Simon says, slipping one of his hands under the table to find mine. “I used to run at night,” he says, all the while tracing the outline of my wedding band with his thumb.

“In this city,” a man across the table says, a bit shocked. “It can be quite dangerous, young man.”

I look over at Snow, but he avoids my eyes.

_This isn’t how these stories usually go…_

“I liked how cool the air was. I tend to run hot,” Simon says, his cheeks turning pink. Too much sustained attention, especially in this type of environment, still makes Snow bashful.

“Anyways, I was out one night, on a walking bridge. Nothing fancy. Just a small thing in the middle of a cheap student neighbourhood. I’d stopped to take a breather and look up at the stars,” Simon says, squeezing my hand. “It was late and there wasn’t usually anyone around. Except that night.”

The table is silent as Simon tells his story, no forks clattering or mouths moving. Just silence.

“I see this man walking towards me. Fit as hell. Fancy coat billowing around him.”

“It wasn’t Baz?” someone says. I don’t know who. I can’t focus on anything except for Simon. I never can.

“I think he fits the description,” someone else says, and I feel the laughs rumbling through him. Simon laughs with his whole body.

“He really does. Never met a fitter bloke. But yeah, it was Baz. But…” Simon pauses. I can practically hear his brain searching for the right words. Can feel the sentence struggling to get out. “That time, I buggered it up. I didn’t…I didn’t ask him out.”

It’s not quite the truth, but it’s close enough.

“But how…” someone starts, but Simon is already speaking.

“But something took pity on me,” Simon says. “I dunno if it’s fate or the universe or magic or whatever. But, a little over five years ago, it was New Years. The countdown had just finished, and I had gone to get some air.”

“Walking at night again?”

“To the same place. And you’ll never guess who was there,” Simon says, and now, finally, he looks at me. “I didn’t make the same mistake twice.”

...

It’s late. Past one o’clock. The night wound down, the speakers and organizers and “doctor types” (Simon’s words) filed out and we were finally released. 

Simon looks like the kind of person who would take up the entire bed. A blanket hogger. A man who would sprawl. The way he walks, all broad shoulders and casual confidence, he just looks like the type who would take up space. 

But he’s not. 

The forced intimacy as his decade-long roommate taught me that, at night, Simon makes himself small. Curls in on himself, fetal position, blankets tossed aside. He’s like that now, folded up into the smallest version of himself, a tiny corner of blanket tucked under his chin. 

I’ve always loved sleeping with Simon—even at Watford, even before I knew what the feelings living in the hidden parts of my heart meant. The sounds of his breathing, even and regular, soothed me to sleep. 

Tonight is no different. The moonlight is pooling in the valleys of our down blanket, flowing over his cheeks, catching on his wedding band. “Are you awake?” I whisper.

“Mmm,” he hums, voice thick with sleep. 

“I think I liked that one best.” My words are soft.

“C’mere,” he rumbles, unfolding and rolling towards me. I feel a thick arm wrap around me, pulling me to him with an urgency that is at once possessive and affectionate. My back folds into his chest, two bodies that were designed to spend nights together.

Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, I count myself lucky that Simon Snow runs hot; it severely limits the amount of clothing he wears to bed. The skin of his bare chest is waking up something deep and wanting—I always want him, but I can already tell Snow’s too sleepy. Too tired from a day rubbing shoulders with my colleagues.

No matter. We’ve got tomorrow, and the next day and the next. We’ve got time.

“You’ve never told that story. The real one. Before.” I mutter the words into the back of his neck. It seems important. Like something that needs to be said. 

“I know.” I don’t think I’d have heard him if I were human. It’s a good thing I’m not.

Simon is quiet for a long time. But I’m willing to wait. “Our story...it isn’t perfect. It’s messy and it kinda hurt. And...I think I...I think I’m okay with...with all of it. Cause, if it had gone down any other way...well, I wouldn’t have this right now, would I?” 

“Oh?” Still reducing me to monosyllables. But the bastard’s not done.

“Baz, I like that I found my way back to you. I think I was meant to. That you were always my endgame. That, no matter what, I would’ve found you. I think…I think I finally like our story better.”

My throat is tight. I think I’ve stopped breathing. 

“Who’s the sentimental twat now?” It’s all I can manage, but Simon understands. I know he does. Because I feel his arms pull me closer, so close. His legs tangled in mine, his arms wrapped around my chest, his curls brushing against my bare shoulders.

“You love it.”

And I do.

The moon dips behind the clouds, a soft breeze lolls in through the open window (I’ve discovered that an open window is not so exasperating when you have a space heater spooning you). I wait until Simon’s breathing evens out again and I find myself falling into his rhythm. In and out.

Some people open up a vein and tie their hearts to yours, chamber by chamber. Some people will capture you in the pull of their gravity, supernovas of heat and the myth of "meant to be.” Some people will always be more than a memory.

Some people aren’t meant to be forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr!  
> [amywaterwings](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/amywaterwings/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC OF] Eternal Sunshine BY Waterwings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29479254) by [BazzyBelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BazzyBelle/pseuds/BazzyBelle)




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